Hooked on a Feeling
by Quatermass
Summary: A young expert on Sirens working for Hyperion receives a message from a childhood friend he hasn't seen for ages. Unfortunately, it also means he earns the wrath of Handsome Jack. Stuck in the wilderness of Pandora with the Vault Hunters, Dr Snyder is no hero. He's a coward, and perpetually on the brink of madness. But fight he must, if only to save his oldest friend, Angel...
1. FOREWORD

**FOREWORD**

Anyone who says that self-insert fiction is necessarily bad is talking shit. It tends to be bad, especially where fanfic is concerned, but this is not a universal truth. For example, one of the greatest poems of all time, _The Divine Comedy_, was basically Dante Aligheri inserting himself into a pilgrimage through the afterlife, accompanied much of the way by Virgil, whom Dante may have been a fanboy of. And then, there's all those writer characters Stephen King puts into his novels, often as main protagonists.

Now, I'm not saying that _Hooked on a Feeling_ will even approach that level. In fact, it goes without saying that this story was started on a whim, and will probably continue on a wing and a prayer. But it's an idea that has maybe a little merit. Maybe it has a lot more. Who knows? Keep in mind, though, that while this is something of a self-insert fic, neither myself, nor many of you guys, have what it takes to truly survive on Pandora, were it a real place. At best, I'd probably end up like Tannis, an anti-social wreck whose brain is completely screwed. At worst, I'd probably end up on some Psycho's spit, turning slowly with an apple in my mouth.

You see, not long ago, I started playing _Borderlands 2_, partly on the strength of Team Four Star's _Two Saiyans Play_ videos. Funnily enough, while I'm not fond of American science fiction TV (and film is variable), video games are another matter. And _Borderlands_ seems to come off as the bastard mutant offspring of _Red Dwarf, Mad Max_, and _Blake's 7_ (or Firefly, if you really want).

The title, as you may have guessed, comes from the song that was made most famous by the Blue Suede version. There's a similar vibe between _Borderlands_ and the movie version of _Guardians of the Galaxy_, who used the song in many of the trailers, as well as in the movie proper. I chose it partly because of that association, but also because it fits in with the theme of this story.

Now for the disclaimers. Firstly, as is usual with these stories, I will be annotating them heavily. Consider yourself warned, and if you don't like it, go eat some skag haunches marinated in slag.

Secondly, if the M rating and the warning above didn't clue you in, this is a work filled with violence, sexual references, and coarse language up the wazoo.

Thirdly, if you don't like self-insert fics of any kind, then the door is there, it's unlocked. Show yourself out, _s'il vouz plait_. Don't like? Don't read.

Fourthly, I haven't played either the original game, nor the Pre-Sequel, or the _Tales from the Borderlands_ games. I will endeavour to include elements from them into this story, but please forgive me if I screw up.

Fifthly, YES. THERE WILL BE CHARACTER SPLASHES. I WILL ENDEAVOUR TO DO THEM IN A LITERARY STYLE THAT APPROACHES THE AWESOMENESS OF THE GAMES' CHARACTER SPLASHES.

Finally, the following is a fan-based work. The _Borderlands_ series is the property of 2K Games, Gearbox, and whoever else I have failed to mention. The song lyrics and quotes are the property of their respective owners, with _Hooked on a Feeling_ being the property of Mark James (songwriter) and BJ Thomas (original performer). Please, support the official release. You don't want to incur the wrath of the Censorbot, do you? You do know what he did to one lot of pirates…


	2. Chapter 1: Jacket Potato

**CHAPTER 1:**

**JACKET POTATO**

_Hooga chaka hooga hooga,_

_Hooga chaka hooga hooga,_

_Hooga chaka hooga hooga,_

_Hooga chaka hooga hooga…_

I wasn't sure what I was feeling as I tried to listen to the song on my music player. Fear? Anxiety? Anticipation? Excitement? Avarice, albeit of knowledge rather than money? All of the above? I mean, after all, here I was, heading to an unknown situation, on a planet generally acknowledged as the shithole of the universe (well, and it still be somewhat habitable, anyway). And I had this nagging feeling that something wasn't quite right.

Still, I had a job to do, and I hoped it would grant me some things that I deeply desired.

Some people come to Pandora for riches. Some come for fame. Some come to track down the legendary Vaults. And some come for knowledge. I considered myself to be in the latter category.

_I can't stop this feeling deep inside of me,_

_Girl, you just don't realise what you do to me._

_When you hold me in your arms so tight,_

_You let me know things are alright._

I had some time to kill before the rendezvous. I was the Official Hyperion Vault Hunter Attaché Associate, a term filled with redundancy and doublespeak. I was told that I had to be the face of Hyperion for these assorted mercenaries, criminals, and weirdos. I had to shave off my beard and wear a suit (and considering that this train had little air conditioning and was currently travelling through a desert, I wondered if this was a punishment Handsome Jack thought up, being a jacket potato baking in the hot train). I thought this was a job normally meant for one of Jack's management suits, but then again, he had given me a major incentive. You know that whole shtick about an offer you can't refuse? Well, at the time, I couldn't refuse because it had what I thought to be the best incentive ever.

_Ahhhh, ah-ahhhhh, ah-ahhhhh! _

_Hooked on a feeling!_

_I'm high on believing_

_That you're in love with me…_

Of course, there was that nagging feeling that something was wrong. And I thought I knew what it was. That message…could it really have been her? The girl who reminded me so much of this old song?

No. That was paranoia talking. Handsome Jack was a dick, true, but he wasn't that much of one, was he?

But you did hear the rumours. Whispers in the corridors of Hyperion, even if I isolated myself to my lab and the library.

And more than rumours. That the official stories weren't quite the real story.

But I kept my head down. Better to focus on my work. The Siren song of research and discovery.

_Lips as sweet as candy,_

_Its taste is on my mind,_

_Girl, you got me thirsty_

_For another cup of wine…_

The train came to a stop. It was a pimple of a station on the arse-end of the world. But apparently, here, the Vault Hunters invited by Jack had gathered. And I had to go meet and greet.

Sighing, I paused the music player and took the earphones out. I hoped Jack's intel was good. I needed some major incentive to be here, as a PR lackey, to a group of mercenaries and bandits. Hopefully, she just stepped onto the train.

I looked at myself in the mirror, nearly falling into it as the train began to move again. A lean, pointed face, with a usually untidy mop of red hair tamed only through the heavy application of hair gel. I look like a ginger scarecrow in a suit. And why oh _why_ did my parents call me Richard? Handsome Jack already had a field day making cheap jokes about me being a soulless ginger (I sometimes wonder if he dyes his dark hair), but thanks to my parents, he loves calling me 'Dick'. One of the top graduates from Hyperion College, and he delights in calling me 'Dick'. Saying stuff like, "Uh, don't mind me, I'm playing with my Dick."

I also checked my main weapon, a fairly expensive Maliwan custom job. A pistol, able to rotate through elemental properties. I'd designed it myself, and had commissioned Maliwan to make it. It had decent power, and I could cycle through the various elements to suit my foe, but firing speed was a bitch. Of course, I'd only had shot this baby on a firing range. I'd never shot a person before. And I hoped not to. But I wasn't stupid enough to come to Pandora without a weapon. Or several, but those were in my pockets.

I felt the familiar twinge in my head. _No, not now. Not in front of these people. They WILL take it the wrong way_. The twinge subsided, almost as quickly as it had come.

I sighed, before I left my compartment, walked down the corridors of the train, and found myself confronted by a sextet of assorted Vault Hunters. Including her. The _Siren_.

"A pleasure to meet you," I lied with a forced smile (that probably made me look like I wanted to go for their neck). "I am Doctor Richard Snyder, Official Hyperion Vault Hunter Attaché Associate."

**DOCTOR RICHARD SNYDER**

**Knows a Lot About Sirens, and Dick About People**

My proclamation didn't go down well enough. They looked at me in varying degrees of bemusement, contempt, and hilarity.

Eventually, it was the commando (Axton, wasn't it?) who broke the silence. Ruggedly handsome, muscled, and with the features of Dan Dare and the smile of a bastard(1). "Nice suit. You about cooked yet?"

**AXTON AS**

**THE COMMANDO**

**Soldier. Sentry-lover. Smartarse.**

I couldn't speak for a moment. "Umm, guys, is he suffering heatstroke?" asked the girl in her late teens, with the cute pigtails, the goggles, and the rather rough and ready look to her. Oh yes. Gaige, a robotic prodigy.

**GAIGE AS**

**THE MECHROMANCER**

**I Like Big Bots and I Cannot Lie**

"No, no! I'm fine. Just a little bit hot, that's all," I said hastily. "Anyway, on behalf of the Hyperion Corporation, I wish to welcome you to Pandora…"

"I already live here, you _pendejo_," said the squat, muscled man with the pointed beard, pointed hair, and deep-set eyes.

**SALVADOR AS**

**THE GUNZERKER**

**Less Talk, Moar Dakka**

"…Okay," I said after an appropriate pause to marshal my flagging wit. Unfortunately, it died a slow, painful death. And my train of thought was interrupted when the train rocked briefly. I then heard a thud on the roof. I activated my ECHO and connected to the train's AI. Apparently it was the result of the train and a bandit vehicle having a disagreement. And the train won the dispute.

It would have been amusing, but it didn't help my situation though. Dammit, I hate public speaking at the best of times. And I couldn't meet _her_ eyes. The one who I had come for.

I looked around for something, anything, to help. I came across a sign hanging from the ceiling, and smiled. Salvation! Or so I thought. It was a sign showing a smiling Handsome Jack, and the words WELCOME VAULT HUNTERS. I grinned, probably showing too many teeth (and given that I was sure that was a Psycho standing with the Vault Hunters, that might not have been a good idea), and I gestured with my hands to the sign. But when I heard something from the sign, and saw their eyes narrowing, I turned to face it, just in time to see the first sign, already dangling by a single point, drop off to reveal a second sign.

Said sign had Handsome Jack grinning rather demonically against a burning background, while the words TO YOUR DOOM. (NOTHING PERSONAL) were on it. And advancing towards us, weapons at the ready, were a group of Hyperion Loaders.

"Stand down!" I yelled.

"AUTHORISATION NOT RECOGNISED," a Loader grated.

I gaped. What the hell was going on?

"Treachery abounds,

Jack's true colours are shown,

This he will regret.(2)"

The electronically distorted voice came from the figure (a man? But why did he have three fingers and a thumb?) in the figure-hugging combat suit and blank, streamlined black helmet. Ah, yes. The enigma. Zer0.

**ZER0 AS**

**A NUMBER**

**He can do haiku at the drop of a head.**

Now, nothing focuses the mind like the prospect of dying. So, I began to run, deciding to put the Vault Hunters between me and the Loaders. I did have a personal shield, but I didn't know how long it would protect my precious, precious flesh from being aerated. Having some people more competent at combat than I between the Loaders and myself should help.

**DOCTOR RICHARD SNYDER AS**

**A COWARD**

**"Stercus, stercus, stercus, moriturus sum!(****3)****"**

However, I noticed that the Vault Hunters were scattering. Not because of my charge, as I knew, even in my panicked state, I wasn't that intimidating. Zer0 was disappearing to the ceiling, clambering out, while Salvador was diving out of the train proper, presumably to cling to the side. As the others scattered and pulled out weapons, I found myself in a head-on collision with the Psycho, who was far more tall and muscular than most Psychos I had seen in pictures.

It was like hitting a brick wall, only slightly less painful. I found myself looking up into the one exposed eye staring out at me from the mask he wore. It was a dark, dark abyss. I stared into that abyss, and it stared back at me.

Well, _shit_.

**KRIEG AS**

**THE PSYCHO**

**Sanity isn't his department. Slaughter is.**

"MOVE ASIDE, JAUNDICE-SACK!" the…creature bellows, shoving me aside and hefting a buzz-axe as it advanced on the Loaders. "THESE METAL BOXES NEED UNPACKING, AND I'M A KID AT CHRISTMAS!"

"Wow," Gaige said as she fired a shotgun blast past the Psycho and at the Loaders. "I wonder why Krieg didn't cut you down?"

"I'm wondering that myself," I whimpered. "Wait, IT has a NAME?"

"Now, now," chided Axton, who was summoning a digistructed sentry gun while whipping out a rocket launcher to use on the Loaders. "That's rather rude, Mr Hyperion."

"Doctor Richard Snyder!" I corrected.

"Oh, wow! Nice to meet you, Dick!"

Oh, great. Another one.

He let loose with a rocket launcher round, sending a rocket spiralling into the Loaders, where it exploded, nearly throwing shrapnel into the face of a slender young woman in a figure-hugging yellow combat suit. She had blue hair and yellow eyes, pale skin on which blue markings stood out. Beautiful and elegant, she seemed somewhat out of place in this battlefield.

Until she raised a hand and enveloped one of the surviving Loaders in a sphere of energy and smirked, the tattoo-like markings on her arm glowing.

**MAYA AS**

**THE SIREN**

**Phaselock and roll.**

She hurled the Loader that had been enveloped by her powers, and hurled it out through the door of the train. "Hey, watch it!" bellowed the voice of Salvador, who leapt back in, equipped a couple of machine guns, and began shooting the Loaders with a berserk roar. He was enjoying himself immensely.

I, however, was not.

Eventually, they ran out of things to shoot and kill, and rather tentatively, I got to my feet. Before I could say anything, however, I found myself lifted high into the air, enveloped in a field of energy. Had I been less terrified, I would have been a bit more excited at the chance to experience a Siren's abilities firsthand. Unfortunately, I also knew that she was very angry. As they all were. "Talk! Did you know about that?" she snarled.

"God, no, I swear! Jack just told me to come down here and act as your liaison! I wanted to meet an actual Siren in the flesh, that's why!"

"Fear burns lies away,

Hyperion's dog speaks truth.

Let him down, Maya."

Zer0's distorted voice got through to Maya, and I was dropped from the energy field, and left to sprawl on the floor. My dignity got bruised along with the rest of me. I was then hauled roughly to my feet. "So, what do we do with him?" Axton asked.

"Bring him. He may have access codes we need," Maya said. She looked at me, and sighed. "Did you want to worship me, or experiment on me?"

Caught unawares by the strange question, I eventually said, "Umm…does research and field observation count as either of those?"

She raised an eyebrow, and her mouth quirked in a slight smile, before she gently shoved me forward. Well, any response where she doesn't kill me with her mind was a good response.

* * *

We went through car to car, until finally we got to the last one, at the front of the train. They seemed to think Handsome Jack was here, despite my protests to the contrary. But for a moment, when the door opened and a familiar silhouette was revealed, seated, I wondered if they were right.

As it turned out, I was right. I got bored of being right, and others being wrong(4).

The chair swivelled to reveal a bomb strapped to a crude dummy of Handsome Jack. And behind that dummy were stacks of explosives. "_Y'know, it's cute that you think you're the heroes of this story. But you're not. Welcome to Pandora, kiddoes. Oh, and Dick? Consider this your termination. I'd have said 'cutting my Dick off', but I'm not crazy._"

I gaped as the timer ran down towards zero. The others were running out of the compartment, but there was no time. Eventually, I fumbled in my coat, extracting an item, turning around and tackling Gaige and Axton, who were bringing up the rear, to the ground. Because the Vault Hunters were so closely packed, once those two went down, the others fell down in the rugby scrum from Hell.

"Hey!" Gaige screamed. "What are you doing?!"

"Saving our lives!" I yelled, pulling the pin from the item in my hands.

"But that's a GRENADE!" Axton yelled, his eyes comically wide. "Are you insane?"

Just before the world got consumed in flame and fire, and everything went black, I thought, _Buddy, you have no fucking idea_.

It wasn't my last conscious thought, though. My last thought as the blackness ate at my mind was of the girl I had lost. The one whom, it seemed, Jack may have tried to kill me over.

Angel…

**CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:**

**Well, I hope that was a good opening chapter. Now, in case you're wondering, Snyder is a coward because, frankly, he's been pretty isolated all his life (partly because of his own choice), and hasn't actually set foot on Pandora until this point. And his boss has just tried to kill him. He's going to be lucky to keep breathing, even with the Vault Hunters for company. He will get better. He's also certain that he's not part of the New-U respawn system.**

**Oh, and 'coward' isn't his class. He will get a third character splash later in the game…um, I mean story. I just couldn't resist making multiple character splashes about him for humour's sake. I found the character splashes similar to the captions used in ****_Burn Notice_****, and they sometimes do it over the same person multiple times in the same episode. Don't worry, he'll get his chance to be badass, outside of his actions at the end of the chapter, which were born mostly out of panic. Yes, he did save their lives. Impulsively.**

**You'll also notice that I'm using British and Australian terms. Besides the fact that I am an Aussie and a major Anglophile, I've noticed a lack of British and Aussie people on Pandora (the only examples I can think of offhand are Sir Hammerlock and, I'm pretty sure, Captain Scarlett). I refuse to believe that Pandora is populated almost exclusively by Americans. So Doctor Snyder is Anglo-Australian, yet another thing Handsome Jack finds funny and mocks Snyder for.**

**I hope you like the modified character splashes for the main characters. They didn't get a motto in their character splashes in the game, so I decided to make some up.**

**1\. This was based on a description Steven Moffat used for Captain Jack Harkness in his debut in the script of ****_Doctor Who: The Empty Child_****. Dan Dare was the daring space pilot star of a famous (at the time) science fiction comic series in the UK. That Snyder has even heard of Dan Dare this far in the future speaks for his nerdiness and enjoyment of obscure and ancient pop-culture. Incidentally, I love the ****_Doctor Who_**** references in ****_Borderlands 2_****. I'm surprised at how many Krieg spouts…**

**2\. I'm sorry if this is a crap haiku, along with Zer0's other haikus. I have NEVER written haikus before (though in my youth, I have written bad poetry), so if the quality is crap, well, that's why. I also decided to change it from the usual formatting of Zer0's haikus (that I've seen so far), so instead of using a slash to denote the next line, I just put the line on another line. If that makes sense. Even so, it helps sharpen the mind and helps get me into Zer0's mindset.**

**3\. Snyder isn't a complete self-insert. A good chunk of him was inspired by other characters, and one of them was one whose motto was this Dog Latin phrase, which means, roughly, "Shit, shit, shit, I'm about to die!" If that's not enough of a clue for you, I'll state it outright: it's Rincewind from the late Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. Funnily enough, a pseudo-alternate version of Rincewind on Earth (thanks to a series of weird events in ****_The Colour of Magic_****) is a scientist, namely a specialist in the breakaway oxidative phenomena in nuclear reactors. Or, if you want the translation, what happens when said reactors catch on fire. Snyder's field is more in eridium and the Sirens, though.**

**4\. A variation on a quote from the ****_Blake's 7_**** episode ****_Rescue_****. After being saved by the acerbic and arrogant Avon from a vicious beast, Dayna asks him, "Do you get tired of being right?" Avon snarks back, "Only with the rest of you being wrong."**


	3. Chapter 2: The Angel, the Robot, and

**PRE-CHAPTER NOTE:**_ Before the next chapter of _Hooked on a Feeling_, I'd like to respond to my first review. Most of the reviews I've gotten for my first fanfic, _Harry Potter and the Cetra Heritage_, are somewhat…laconic, and mostly praise or short comments. However, Bigby the Big Bad Wolf (I love _Fables_, so kudos for the name) has actually written a more meaty review for this work, and I'd like to address some of his points._

_Firstly, I haven't, as mentioned in the foreword, played _Tales from the Borderlands_ (although maybe I should remedy this one day). The most I know about Rhys is from the trailers (I love the _Sherlock _reference in the trailer for the second episode: "Too many people died." "THAT'S WHAT PEOPLE DO!") and from TV Tropes. Snyder isn't a Handsome Jack fanboy, which was the impression I got from the TV Tropes page about Rhys. Funnily enough, Snyder has known Jack back before he truly rose to prominence within Hyperion. In fact, in the coming chapter, he reminisces about the 'Uncle John' he once knew. Snyder does owe Jack his education and job, and Jack, being the dick that he is, never let Snyder forget it._

_That being said, Snyder doesn't quite know the full depths of Jack's nastiness. He hears rumours, but has generally dismissed them for being rumours. He's somewhat focused on his research. I haven't mentioned it yet, but he has, like me, Asperger's Syndrome. Now, Tannis is mentioned in-game as having AS, but frankly, if she has AS, she has a shitload more problems than that. Snyder has focused on his work at the expense of his social life. He can socialise with people if pressed, and Jack, being rather intelligent for an evil bastard, used Snyder's all-consuming interest in the Sirens as bait. Unfortunately, Snyder knows jack about Jack. This story is about changing that._

_Is Snyder, instead of being a self-insert, an author surrogate? Hmm, I like to think of Snyder as being somewhere between a surrogate and self-insert. He isn't completely me, but he has enough of me, like the Asperger's, some of the acid wit and attitude, and so on. He's not a coward due to his isolation per se. He's a coward because he's been dropped into a situation where his boss wants him dead, and he is totally unsuited to combat. He's shot his pistol at a firing range, but if he got caught in a skirmish with bandits, he'd panic, simply because he's in a life or death situation. He's also afraid of himself: it's barely hinted at in Chapter 1, but in Chapter 2 (incidentally written before I even posted Chapter 1), we have some bigger hints. Jack had some dirt on Snyder: I don't count Asperger's as a mental illness, but what Snyder does have in addition can count. I mention incidents in this chapter, incidents where his Action Skill, so to speak, has come to the fore._

_Thanks, Bigby, for praising my handling of Jack. Given Jack's actions in the game, it's easy to see him as an extraordinarily twisted version of an overprotective father. It's a bit more overtly discussed in this chapter. As for what the other Vault Hunters think, frankly, most of them see Snyder (understandably) as a burden at best. Maya and Zer0 do see the potential for intel on Jack, and Gaige and Snyder will bond, but the others aren't as forgiving. As for him telling the others about Angel, well, you'll see. The major divergence from the game's story won't come for some time._

_Yes, he will have an Action Skill. And yes, he will comment on some of the more ridiculous things Jack does. He will tend to contribute to mostly the side quests (while the others are going around the glacier, he's the one looking for Helena Pierce's ECHO records around Liar's Berg, and while the others are dealing with the train hijacking, he's helping Tiny Tina with the tea party, for example) at first._

**CHAPTER 2:**

**THE ANGEL, THE ROBOT, AND THE BULLYMONG**

You know that old cliché about your life flashing before your eyes? Well, it happened to me, and I have to say that, looking back on my twenty-four years of life, it was pretty fucking boring. By choice, really. I didn't get along with other people that much, and the few who did get along with me tended to disappear, or die.

My parents were loving, true, but they were also corporate drones, programmers for Hyperion. I remembered an Uncle John, who, of course, was the man who would become Jack. At the time, I thought him merely funny. And through Uncle John (who wasn't really my uncle, but was given that title as some people do), I knew Angel.

Angel was my first real friend. In retrospect, I wonder whether she was my only friend at the time. I didn't have the knack of making them or keeping them. We were both the same age, maybe six when we first met(1). She was a bright little thing, as was I. She loved tinkering with technology, and I had to admit to being frustrated that she seemed to have an intuitive grasp of it.

I was also fascinated by the tattoos she seemed to have, whenever she wore a sleeveless dress. When I asked about them, she said, "They're not tattoos."

It was some time before I learned what she was. A Siren. She thought it would destroy our friendship. If anything, it grew. At least until she disappeared, and her mother died. And John became Jack, and forbade me to talk about her ever again.

I was distraught, especially when Jack hit me for demanding to speak to Angel. For a time, I believed that it was because he was grieving, and my demands had rubbed salt into a raw, raw wound.

Now, though, I couldn't be certain.

As I drifted in the darkness, I saw her. Not as the child she was, but as a young woman, an angelic beauty, her hair blowing in a non-existent wind. The way she appeared in that ECHO message she sent me, before everything went to hell.

"Wake up…" she said, before sensation rushed in to fill the void…

* * *

The first thing I noticed was the biting cold and the pain, with my body feeling like a gigantic bruise. The second was a marginally more pleasant sensation: the sound of an obnoxious CL4P-TP model robot. There were few things that Jack and I agreed on, and one of them was a mutual loathing of the Claptrap robots(2).

**CLAPTRAP**

**Annoyingly tenacious. Like a VD.**

I didn't get to hear much beyond the robot saying, "…one is still alive!" before I was dragged out of the snow by an irate Salvador. He wasn't tall, but damn he was strong, and anger and adrenaline made it even more so. It felt like he was hoisting me well above his head.

"What did you do to us, _cabron_?" he snarled.

I couldn't marshal my resources to make any kind of coherent response, but thankfully, Gaige saved me by skipping around to me, eyes wide with that enthusiasm I knew I sometimes felt. "Oh, wow, was that a shield grenade?"

Seeing her intervention as my salvation, I nodded as rapidly as I could, probably giving myself whiplash. "Yes. Sort of a prototype. Haven't got that many."

"But we have shields already," Salvador said, his brow furrowing. "Why do we need a shield grenade?"

"Well, I could explain, if you please let me go?"

Looking at me, and dismissing me as a threat, he shrugged, and let me fall to my hands (me having being on my knees already), before I got, rather shakily, to my feet. I pulled a grenade out of my suit pocket. "The Disposable Protective Ordinance Prototype, or D-POP. It uses the same technology as a normal shield, but boosts the power at the cost of lifespan. It lasts for maybe ten seconds. A gaming buddy wondered why we don't have these in real life.(3)"

"And what use would that be?" Axton asked.

"Well, normal shields don't last forever. And there are some things a normal shield can't protect you from. So…I had a buddy of mine at Hyperion's weapons R&amp;D make a batch for me." I looked down at the grenade in my hand. "I'm amazed it worked, frankly. I thought Dave filled his hours with excessive onanism."

Only Maya seemed to understand me, for she wrinkled her face in disgust. "Ugh. Too much information, Doc."

"What's onanism?" Axton asked, puzzled.

"What you get up to in bed on lonely nights," Maya explained, trying to balance tact with clarity.

Unfortunately, it went over his head, as he patted the digistruct package for his sentry. "I never get lonely with the missus for company."

"I know how you feel!" Claptrap said. "I'm never lonely with my friends."

_What friends?_, I wondered to myself.

"Metal box has no meat," growled the Psycho. "Only noises."

_He has a point_, I thought to myself. But as I hugged myself and shivered, I said, out loud, "Is there any way we can get to shelter, ASAP? My plans for the day didn't involve dying of exposure."

"Getting blown up in a train was?" Maya asked wryly.

"Not my plans," I said. "I'm guessing Handsome Jack-Off planned differently."

My impromptu insult towards Handsome Jack caused a small wave of hilarity to go through the group. "Well, that's settled!" Claptrap said cheerfully. "Let's head back to my place for the time being. Casa de Claptrap is this-a way!" And with that, the yellow, rhomboid robot trundled off into the snow.

With varying degrees of enthusiasm and trepidation, the Vault Hunters, as well as myself, trudged after the annoying little hunk of junk. Any shelter was better than none, even if it was with a Claptrap unit.

Suddenly, the ECHO system's projector projected an image into my sight. That of a young dark-haired woman, her hair blowing in the wind, beautiful and ethereal. "Hello, Ricky."

I blinked. Only one person ever called me Ricky. "Angel?" I muttered, scarcely believing it to be true.

"Yeah. Looks like Jack didn't take me contacting you very well. He tried to kill you and the Vault Hunters in one fell swoop. But follow them, and the robot. I know you don't like Claptrap units, but he can help you get away from here. And Ricky…don't tell the others about me. I've already contacted them, and they think I'm an AI. If they learn the truth, Jack may redouble his efforts to eliminate them. He already knows that you're all still alive, but he thinks he can still use you all to his advantage." She smiled, her eyes glistening. "You can do it."

"Oh, sure, in the middle of the cold rectal sphincter of the world, with a bunch of assorted mercenaries, criminals and psychos. I'm a scientist, more for the lab than the field, not a fucking Vault Hunter."

"Language," she chided. "You're braver than you think. Stronger than you know. Remember the secrets we shared."

My heart sank when I understood what she was implying. "No…no, not _that!_ The last time that happened, I woke up in a cell. Jack had to send _Wilhelm_ to stop me! Jack only let me off because I had made a new kind of treatment for skull-shivers, but I had set half the lab on fire! He nearly sent me off to a mental institution!(4)"

She smiled. "Better to be a little mad and survive than be sane but dead."

"Speak for yourself," I said, glancing nervously at Krieg. He wasn't a _little_ mad. And the other Vault Hunters, as far as I could tell, weren't exactly paragons of mental health either.

"I believe in you. I believe in all of you. Good luck." And with that, Angel faded away.

But _I_ don't believe in me. I don't really have self-esteem as much as an overinflated ego masquerading as such. And that got punctured when Jack turned on me, and left me out, quite literally, in the cold.

The others, it seemed, had also spoken to Angel. I wondered if multitasking a conversation was part of her Siren abilities, or else something to do with the way she was, somehow, wired into the ECHONet.

* * *

A long trudge through the snow, and avoiding eye contact with the others, ended when we got to what looked like a mountain. In a way, it was: a mountain of debris and detritus, half-covered with snow.

Claptrap opened the door, and ushered us in, saying that the extra security was to help keep out bullymongs. Oh great, I thought. While my specialty was in the Sirens, I had studied the wildlife of Pandora, and bullymongs approached the top of the 'creatures I'd sooner avoid' list. Think a kind of four-armed, heavily muscled gorilla with a big mane and an even bigger attitude problem.

Claptrap's dwelling was full of crap and scrap, and still bloody cold. But it was better than being out in the blizzard. I noticed that a couple of the Vault Hunters had claimed a dilapidated couch to sit on. As said Vault Hunters included Gaige and Zer0, I decided to sit next to them, against my better judgement. Krieg and Salvador were too bloodthirsty for my liking, Axton was a dick, and Maya…well, I wasn't sure whether I had made a favourable impression, and I wanted to avoid getting phaselocked, as I learned that ability was called, again.

Gaige was tinkering with her arm, which I only now truly noticed was artificial. "Jesus, are you all right?" I asked.

"Eh, it happened a while ago," Gaige said casually. "I was working on my robot, Deathtrap, and cut my arm all the way to the bone." She grinned up at me, clearly taking pleasure in making me nauseous. "I was having trouble getting a proper digistruct summoning interface working for him, and I thought, well, why not kill two birds with one stone?"

I grimaced. "That sounds too much like the time I discovered Regen Factor 5.0."

Zer0, who was carefully cleaning his sword (I mean that literally, with no innuendo, as he'd probably decapitate me if I made such a joke), chose that moment to remark in his quiet, filtered voice.

"A bloody story,

Filled with pain, madness, sickness,

Am I not correct?"

I felt chilled to the core. "How do you know?"

"Faces are a book,

Yours is quite easily read

You'd lose at poker."

As if to emphasise the point, an emoticon popped up on his visor, projected somehow as a hologram. It was simply a **:P**. Great. I was getting mocked by the enigmatic faceless warrior.

"Quite frankly, you're right, but you don't want to know the details. Let's just say that when it happens, get out of the way. Things tend to go wrong when it happens."

"Threats do not frighten,

Warnings, however, I heed,

Still, these words intrigue."

"I don't think I need any warnings about you," I muttered. "Don't fuck with the haiku-spouting assassin with the sharp sword."

"Wise words indeed, yes.

Yet so many do not heed

And die on my blade."

"…Do you have a haiku generator hooked up or something?"

"No." At last, I get something out of him that isn't a haiku.

"Ah, done," Gaige said, finishing with her cybernetic arm. "So, you're a scientist, yeah? What field? Robotics?"

"Biology. My specialist field is in Sirens, as well as the effects of Eridium on various organisms. Hence, Jack sent me to meet you guys with that carrot there." I nodded at Maya, who seemed to be discussing things with Axton. Krieg and Salvador were mooching around. "Of course, he then proceeds to try and brain me with the stick." I looked at her. "Heard about you, though. Apparently your robot got third place at some science fair. You claimed that the winner had bought her way." Noticing the dark look on her face, I said, "Not that I don't believe you. It's just that killing the winner is a bit of an overreaction."

"I didn't kill her!" Gaige snapped. "She shoved me over. And Deathtrap, who was designed as an anti-bully robot, retaliated to protect me."

I blinked. "Killing the bully…to protect you."

"Yeah, well, I think I overpowered Deathtrap. Marcie exploded."

I sighed. "You know what? I wish I had that robot in school, frankly. Overpowered or not."

As Gaige gawped at me, I heard Claptrap talking about the local bullymongs, including the vicious one known as Knuckle-Dragger. "But we should be safe in here!"

Well, that was daring the universe to prove him wrong. Suddenly, with a roar, a gigantic bullymong leapt in through a hole in the ceiling, grabbed Claptrap, and subjected him to impromptu ophthalmic surgery. To whit, removing Claptrap's eye. As quickly as the brute had come, it scampered back up to the hole in the ceiling and vanished, leaving Claptrap whimpering, and me in shock.

A small part of me that remained rational said, _Well, there goes that hope this place could be safe…_

**CHAPTER 2 ANNOTATIONS:**

**1\. It's hard to tell how old Angel really is in the game, especially with the in-game model. Jack treats her like a child, but she's clearly in her teens at the least, to perhaps her twenties. Britanni Johnson, the actress who plays Angel in the live-action footage of her, was about nineteen or twenty at the time of ****_Borderlands_****' creation, according to IMDB. This, serendipitously, coincided with the rough age I had in mind for Angel in the game proper: about nineteen. Angel, in this fanfic, is therefore 24, same age as Snyder, at the time of this fanfic, set during the events of ****_Borderlands 2_****.**

**2\. I find Claptrap funny as well as annoying, but I guess if he was a real-life robot, he'd piss me off something fierce.**

**3\. I haven't actually played ****_Halo_**** or its sequels (nor do I have any intention to), but I do know that it has a shield grenade. Well, I think it does. I also saw something similar in ****_Nobody Dies_****, the ****_Evangelion_**** fanfic by Gregg Landsman. I decided that it works by basically being a ****_Borderlands_****-style shield that has the power boosted to ridiculous levels, but at the cost of basically shorting out after a short period.**

**4\. Some hints to the secret that Snyder is hiding. It's related to what would be, if he was in the game, his Action Skill. I later found out that Nisha from the ****_Pre-Sequel_**** has, as her Action Skill, broadly what I had in mind for Snyder. Of course, he isn't a gunslinger. You'll have to wait until the confrontation with Boom-Bewm to find out what, exactly…**


	4. Chapter 3: It's Cold Outside

**CHAPTER 3:**

**IT'S COLD OUTSIDE…**

Claptrap, after recovering from his impromptu optic enucleation(1), decided that he wanted to venture forth from his _pied-à-terre_ and get it back, saying that he had been waiting for a might Vault Hunter to help him. Now he had seven, and he would be our leader, and we would be his fearsome minions.

There was so much wrong with that, I couldn't even begin to list them. The others looked irritated, but decided to go along with it. And as they were my best chance of surviving, I pretty much had to go with them. Of course, it didn't stop me from complaining as we ventured out, once more, into the cold.

"You bitch a lot, you know that?" Axton remarked after the first few minutes.

"Unfortunately, the depths of my annoyance and despair cannot be readily relieved with the phrase 'fuck my life'. It can be summed up as that, but not actually relieved."

"What would relieve it?" Maya asked.

"PUTTING SCREAMING HOLES IN THE WATERMELON OF THE MASKED MIRROR-LICKER!" Krieg chose that moment to add his tuppence worth in his loud voice.

"If by 'masked mirror-licker', he means Handsome Jack, then yeah. Fat chance of that happening, though," I said, after a moment's thought.

"FAT CHANCES CAN GO ON A DIET OF METAL MOSQUITOES!"

"Calm down, big guy," Maya said. "You'll cause an avalanche."

She seemed to be the most familiar with him, I realised. "You know him?"

"For all of fifteen minutes before the others got on the train," she said. "I had arrived at the station before them. A train arrived, not the one we were supposed to get on, but another one. I heard him coming up behind me. I turn around, see him staring at me, and for some reason, he yells out 'I AM THE CONDUCTOR OF THE POOP TRAIN!' I nearly shot him there and then."

I blinked, and looked at Krieg. "Uh…wow, those would have been majorly embarrassing last words."

To my surprise, Krieg nodded, and I thought I heard him mutter, in a calm, lucid, and above all, _quiet_ tone, "They nearly were.(2)"

I blinked. Did I imagine that?

"Anyway, I'm firing away at the rock he took cover behind, and he goes on about stripping flesh and salting wounds, before he finally leaps up, groaning in what sounded like pain, yells 'TURN AROUND PRETTY LADY!', and hurls the buzz-axe right at me. Or so I thought. Turned out there were a pack of Rats behind me, and the buzz-axe got one of them right in the noggin. That Rat nearly got me in the back. Krieg decimated almost all of them, helped save my life. One last Rat nearly got the jump on him, but I phaselocked the mutated POS, and he administered the _coup de grace_."

"I CARVED HIS DEATH INTO HIS LOBES!" Once more, Krieg's volume, enthusiasm, and hamminess was turned up to Brian Blessed levels. No doubt I'd be deaf before daybreak.

Any further discussion on the matter of the Conductor of the Poop Train and his Rat-killing was interrupted when a small group of young bullymongs attacked. I held back, near where Claptrap had fallen and buried himself head-first (insomuch as a rhomboid robot has a 'head') in a drift of snow. I occasionally took a potshot with my Maliwan custom pistol, setting it to flame rounds and hoping the bullymongs' fur would catch on fire. But the others did most of the work.

Once they were done, I sighed, and began to extract Claptrap. As I did so, I heard a familiar, and already hated voice coming from my ECHO. Not Claptrap. "_Hey, buddies, how's it going out there?_"

"Doing fine until you poked your face into it," Maya snarked back.

"_Oh, really? You wanna know something? We have a problem. You're not dead yet, you know what I'm saying?_"

"Sorry to disappoint," Axton said.

"_Oh, that's fine, I'm used to it. But could you do me a solid and shoot yourselves, right now? No? Shame. Oh well, sucks to be you, right now. Especially if your name's Dick, am I right?_"

"My name is Richard Snyder!" I snapped.

"_No, your name is Dick. As in what you know. What you mean to Hyperion as a whole. And, incidentally, what the bullymongs'll be eating for dinner. Hey, bullymongs, go eat a Dick! It's good for you!_" His laughter at his own, rather pathetic joke made everyone cringe, much to my relief.

"That…" Axton said as the ECHO connection cut off, "was a Dick move."

Oh great, he spoiled the moment. Why doesn't he pull on sunglasses or something? Besides the fact that it's the middle of the night, anyway.

We reached an area that, to me, stank of an arena. There was a lot more junk here than even anywhere else in this area, and a wrecked Hyperion barge was perched on top of a cliff. Claptrap suddenly exclaimed, "Hey, I can see again! I can see an incredibly handsome robot, escorted by tough-looking minions…" And then, a fear born of realization crept into his voice. "Which means whoever has my eye, is incredibly close!"

"Up there!" Salvador bellowed, pointing to the top of the Hyperion barge. The big bullymong from earlier was there, Claptrap's eye tied around its neck in a crude necklace. It roared, and picked up a wrecked vehicle, which it tossed at us. All of us scattered.

"It's Knuckle-Dragger!" Claptrap squealed.

**KNUCKLE-DRAGGER **

**Loves a Good Serving of Eye-Scream(****3)**

Well, _great_.

Maya took the initiative, using a phaselock on the beast(4). The others took that as their cue to open fire. I eventually joined in, switching the element initially to slag, and once I was sure that Kuckle-Dragger was slagged, I switched back to fire. As before, my attacks did make a contribution, but it was the others who did the hard yards, and frankly, I spent most of my time diving rather inelegantly away from the bullymong's attacks.

And then, I heard Claptrap wail, "They're coming out of the wall-sphincters!" They, meaning a swarm of bullymongs.

_Great_, I thought as I fumbled with a cartridge, trying to reload my pistol with numb fingers. _I'm about to fucking die, and the last words I hear are 'wall-sphincters'. If I get out of this, I will laugh with Claptrap…and beat the circuits out of him with a big hammer_.

Suddenly, Knuckle-Dragger loomed over me, roaring and reaching for me. Now, I'd like to say that what happened immediately afterwards was the result of me being badass, but frankly, it was sheer luck, and perhaps a bit of epinephrine. Or adrenaline, if you want to be picky. In any case, in a panic, I shot flame round after flame round into the bullymong's face. One hit an eye, and Knuckle-Dragger reared back, screaming in pain. Unfortunately, the shot wasn't fatal (bullymongs have fairly thick skulls, and my panic had also made sure I grazed the eye, rather than going through it), and Knuckle-Dragger decided to repay me in kind, with a loan shark's worth of interest.

Before the bullymong could turn my head into something resembling strawberry jam, Zer0 leapt in, and plunged his sword deep into the bullymong's skull. I guess if this was a poorly-written piece of fiction, you'd call that a _deus ex machina_. Instead, I called it a literally bloody miracle.

"Four arms and two legs

They avail you not, great beast.

Be calm in your death."

I scrambled to my feet. "Thanks. But I don't think that creature'll be calm, even in Hell."

"Gratitude noted.

My life you saved once before

Are accounts settled?"

I looked at him numbly, before realising he meant on the train. "Well, you did save me from Maya earlier, so I'm not sure. And knowing my luck, I'm going to be neck-deep in life debts to you guys."

Once more, a projected image appeared on his visor. Not an emoticon, but an abbreviation. **LOL**. He then plucked Claptrap's eye from around Knuckle-Dragger's neck.

"You have my eye? Great! My old pal Sir Hammerlock at Liar's Berg can help fix it. Much as I know you'd love to jam your fist into my eye-socket, optic surgery is best left to the professionals. I think we can get to Liar's Berg through that old Hyperion barge. Allons-y!"

I groaned. I wondered if Claptrap was a Whovian. I hoped not.

Then, a name he mentioned stood out. Sir Hammerlock? Not THE Sir Alastair Hammerlock(5)? One of the most famous zoologists of all time? That Sir Hammerlock? What the hell was he doing in this frozen arsehole of the world?

Thankfully, it wasn't much of a climb to get to the Hyperion barge, just a short, leisurely walk up a gentle incline. Claptrap seemed to keep bumping into things, but unfortunately, he didn't fall off the cliff. He then went to the security panel. "Hah! This is Hyperion tech, child's play." As a scanner light played over him, he said, triumphantly, "AANNNND…OPEN!"

The Hyperion barge promptly locked up tighter than it had before.

"Well, it was nice knowing you," Claptrap said. "I hear getting eaten alive by bullymongs ain't such a bad way to go."

"Never believe hearsay," I whimpered.

"Let me get that for you," said Angel, appearing all of a sudden. She appeared briefly in the screen of the barge's door control panel. "Executing phase-shift." The barge unlocked and opened almost as swiftly as it had locked. When she reappeared, she seemed to be smirking. "You're welcome. Benefits of being an 'artificial intelligence'." I was sure that I was the only one who heard the quotes. Then again, I was the only one here who knew what she was. "I'm hooked up to every Hyperion system. Go ahead and take what you need from the barge: it's a long road to Sanctuary."

On the inside of the barge, weapons lockers rose up. The Vault Hunters immediately fell upon them, distributing weapons to each other.

I found myself standing near the door leading to Liar's Berg when Maya approached me. She handed me a Maliwan shock-based SMG. I blinked, before looking up at her. "Take it," she said. "I've got another, better one. I think even a Hyperion scientist could use a sub-machine gun."

"Oh. Thanks," I said, taking it.

"You're welcome. How much do you actually know about Sirens, anyway?" she asked.

I rubbed the back of my head, sheepishly. "You want me to be perfectly frank? I'm in the top three experts on Sirens on this planet, and probably in the top ten in the universe. But really, there isn't that much known about them, surprisingly. Very little research has actually been done, at least by reputable sources. Why?"

"I came here to find out more about Sirens. I know that at least two are or were here: former Crimson Lance Commandant Helga Steele, and Dr Lilith Cashlin(6), the Vault Hunter and, well, fugitive from Hyperion. Both are supposedly dead."

I nodded, chewing pensively at a thumbnail. "Steele died during that whole Vault brouhaha five years ago, while Lilith apparently died during that whole New Haven scouring. At the time, I thought Jack was destroying criminals. I guess I might've been wrong. Of course, there are rumours Lilith is still alive, but I don't honestly know. The only difference between Steele and Lilith is that they found Steele's corpse." I gave Claptrap a dirty look, and he decided to try and look innocent. "So it's perfectly possible that you know almost as much as I know. Most of it is readily researchable. My actual doctorate is on Eridium's effects on human tissue cultures _in vitro_. Eridium and Sirens do seem to be linked."

"Is that so?"

"Well, yes. I heard Handsome Jack brag to me recently that he knows the whereabouts of three of the six Sirens the universe supposedly has. He said you were one of them. And he had a surprising amount of information about you. Like what happened on Athenas."

At this, she went still, her eyes narrowing. Oh, great. Open mouth, insert foot. Groaning, I said, "If it makes you feel any better, I was a misotheist long before I read the ECHO transcript. Execution over overdue tithes, for fuck's sake."

"Fuck's not a deity I've ever heard of," she commented, but the tone of her voice was more reassuring than her words. She relaxed. And so did I.

"Doesn't stop people from praying to Fuck," I muttered. "Of course, if there is a god, then they're a petty, cruel and vindictive bastard. Or bitch. Whatever. Actually, Fuck would be a good name for whatever god reigns over the universe, and Pandora in particular."

"You got that right. Listen…Athenas is in the past. There were good people and bad people there. I don't want to forget the past. But I do want to focus on the present."

Wise words indeed. And Claptrap chose that moment to open up the Hyperion barge's far door. Now, it was time to head to Liar's Berg.

* * *

As we approached the small cluster of houses and shops, we heard Handsome Jack general broadcasting a bounty of a million dollars on each of our heads. This, it seemed, got the interest of a bandit leader by the name of Captain Flynt, who demanded our heads, now. Clearly, not the sharpest tool in the shed, emphasis on tool. I mean, he just demanded our heads on a general ECHO broadcast.

We came to the gates of Liar's Berg, and Claptrap called out, over ECHO, to Sir Hammerlock, notifying him that Claptrap, with an entourage of Vault Hunters, had arrived. The fruity, cultured tones were definitely those of the Hammerlock I had heard of. "Oh no, this day gets worse and worse! First Flynt's men massacre the inhabitants here, and now Claptrap has arrived! I must've been appallingly cruel to puppies in a former life to deserve this. Vault Hunters, if you could help clear the town, I'd be most grateful."

_I'm not a Vault Hunter_, I thought, as Axton peered over the top of a wall. He smirked. "About a dozen goons. I think we should introduce them to the missus."

I noticed he was plucking the digistruct packed from his belt. "Is that your sentry gun?"

"Yeah. Hey, Gaige? You think Deathtrap can help out the missus?"

Gaige smirked. "Sure. Hey, Richard, you ever watch _Doctor Who_?"

"Uhh, yeah. Why?"

"You'll love this." She pointed her cybernetic arm at the bandits over the wall. "EXTERMINATE!(7)"

A rather large, boxy robot with a single eye, large claws, and a thruster, appeared in a cyan flare, and zoomed towards the nearest bandit. Axton's digistruct package was already hitting the ground, and unfolding into a sentry. Between the two of them, Liar's Berg was cleared within a minute, bloody corpses littering the snow. Flynt snarled, "This ain't over, grinder!", in his asthmatic tone.

"Ah, this is no fun," Salvador spat. "Hiding while your toys do all the work."

"Speak for yourself," I muttered. "I could do without lead poisoning."

Any argument was cut off by Claptrap, who had opened the gate to Liar's Berg, and who was demanding that Hammerlock repair his eye. Hammerlock conceded that he did owe a favour to the annoying robot, and asked us to come to his house, secure behind an electrified gate. He told us to hold back while Claptrap went first.

It was highly amusing to watch Claptrap, in the middle of a delusional speech about how he was best friends with Hammerlock, made contact with the electrified fence, convulsed, and fell onto his back, twitching.

"Apologies," Hammerlock said over ECHO. "But whenever Claptrap speaks, I can feel my brain cells committing suicide."

"I know that feeling," I said.

"I'll be out presently."

Through the electrified fence, we watched as the door to the house opened, and out marched a most extraordinary figure. Superficially, he seemed like one of those fictional stereotypes of a big game hunter from the British Empire, all khaki and pith, with muttonchops, a moustache, and glasses. But then, you noticed the artificial limbs. "A pleasure to meet you, Vault Hunters. I am Sir Hammerlock, at your service." He saluted.

**SIR ALISTAIR HAMMERLOCK **

**The coolest zoologist since David Attenborough.**

As Hammerlock unlocked the gate, we took turns introducing ourselves, or in Krieg's case, snarl something about blood drink while Maya did the introductions. I introduced myself last, while Hammerlock was carefully repairing Claptrap's eye.

"Doctor Snyder, hmm? I read your thesis on Eridium effects on in vitro cultures," Hammerlock said. "Quite interesting."

"Thank you, sir. It's a pleasure to meet one of the premiere experts on Pandoran wildlife…well, most of it, anyway."

"What do you mean?" he asked, his eyes narrowing behind his glasses.

"Well, are you an expert on the bandits here? I'm sure they count as wildlife."

"Ah, you were jesting! Sorry, had it been before these bandits murdered the townsfolk, I doubtless would have enjoyed the joke somewhat better." He sighed gently. "You are right in one regard. Many of these bandits are little more than animals, even by Pandoran standards. I'm surprised to see a Hyperion employee in the company of Vault Hunters, though given Handsome Jack's bounty announcement, I'm guessing that you're no longer an employee."

"Yeah, you're right. No pension for me. Not that there was much of one anyway."

"Well, sucks to be you," Axton said cheerfully, clapping a faux-friendly hand on my shoulder.

_Great_, I thought. _How could my day possibly get any worse?_

"I AM ALIIIIIVE!" Claptrap yelled as Sir Hammerlock reactivated him.

_Oh yes. That's how._

**CHAPTER 3 ANNOTATIONS:**

**More traipsing around the game's earlier stages. Now, as mentioned earlier in my pre-chapter 2 notes, I am having Snyder do more of the sidequests. At this point, he'd prefer the less dangerous ones, so he's going to deal with the Helena Pierce ECHO recordings one while he's at Liar's Berg which, along with some more character development, will occupy most of the next chapter.**

**Snyder's brief talk with Maya is partially a response to Bigby the Big Bad Wolf's assertion that Maya, who came to Pandora to discover more about the Sirens, never really does this in the game. This is, admittedly, possibly due to restrictions with the game (I was kinda hoping for Lilith to have a different response to Maya when she entered her Firehawk Lair, but it didn't happen), so while there won't be any major discussion of that earlier, there will be Snyder, Lilith, and Maya discussing Sirens in later chapters. Keep in mind, too, that Maya is still (not unreasonably) wary of Snyder, and the events on Athenas are still somewhat sore to her. But she's also willing to give Snyder a chance, especially as he uses the term 'misotheist', something she would know as well (look it up if you want).**

**BTW, this will be the last chapter for a little while. I'm spread between this and ****_Harry Potter and the Cetra Heritage_****, and I'm doing better than I thought on that one. But don't worry, another chapter will be on the way once I write it. Unlike ****_The Cetra Heritage_****, I'm posting chapters for this story more or less as I write them.**

**1\. Optic enucleation is the technical term for surgical removal of the eyeball. Yes, that is a thing. I nearly called it an 'opthalectomy', but decided to look up the actual surgical term for eyeball removal.**

**2\. I wondered if, on occasion, 'Inner Krieg' would be able to speak to others. I decided, on occasion, he would.**

**3\. I decided to write my own new character splashes for the characters. It's actually quite tough: many of those done for the game are pretty much perfect. Knuckle-Dragger was VERY tough to rewrite his character splash.**

**4\. I'm allowing the characters to be able to use their Action Skills early. Maya uses her Phaselock here, as shown, and Axton uses his Sentry and Gaige uses Deathtrap to clear out Liar's Berg. I decided that coming up with an in-story reason for being unable to use these abilities after the train wreck (which I saw in another fanfic) when they were able to use the abilities in the opening movie was unnecessary.**

**5\. My thought is, if Hammerlock is at all famous in the Borderlands universe, surely someone with an interest in biology and Pandora's wildlife would know of him? His first name, Alistair, was used in the Pre-Sequel.**

**6\. Commandant Steele's first name and status as a Siren, along with Lilith's last name and title, I found on the ****_Borderlands_**** Wiki. These either were meant to be in the game, or else were revealed by the developers to be the case.**

**7\. Gearbox put a shitload of ****_Doctor Who_**** references in (especially with, funnily enough, Krieg of all people, who often spouts off quotes of the last words of the various Doctors). I'm a hardcore Whovian, and Snyder is one too. Given how Gaige says 'Exterminate!', it's a not unreasonable assumption that she is too.**


	5. Chapter 4: An ECHO of the Past

**CHAPTER 4:**

**AN ECHO OF THE PAST**

That night we spent in Liar's Berg was uncomfortable and cold, but it was better than what we had gone through. Then again, I guess the Vault Hunters were used to sleeping rough. I wasn't. The new suit I had bought for being their liaison was now rumpled, stained with the blood of bullymongs, and with holes eaten into it by the splashback of my flame and slag rounds during my desperate shooting of Knuckle-Dragger.

Then again, I hated wearing the damn thing anyway. In the heat, it was too hot. In the cold, it offered but the barest warmth.

I didn't sleep well though. Dreams, or rather nightmares, were filled with me capering amongst flames and explosions, laughing my head off. I knew they weren't truly dreams, but memories…

And then, the hated voice of Handsome Jack. "_Now…that's what you are, Dick. A monster. But you're MY monster. You're useful. But remember what always happens to monsters in the end of the story…_"

Strange shapes appeared before my eyes. I saw a winged woman ensnared by ribbons of violet energy. I could see, briefly, how it worked, how it imprisoned her. I could see that it kept her alive, no matter what. And I saw her eyes, filled with pain and misery.

"_Ricky…wake up._"

* * *

Upon waking, I wandered out of Sir Hammerlock's home. I wasn't the only early riser. Besides Hammerlock himself, Zer0 and Axton were going through some exercises in the pre-dawn twilight in what could've been called the town square, had there actually been much of a town before the bandits decimated it.

Hammerlock himself was looking rather pensively at an ECHO recorder while seated near the bounty board. When he saw me approach, he smiled. "Ah, you're also an early riser."

"Not by choice. Bad dreams. Well, memories, anyway."

"Must be rather bad to be nightmares for one so young. You said your thesis was on Eridium effects on _in vitro_ cell cultures. You didn't do any…_in vivo_, did you?"

"No! Well, to lab animals. Rats, mice, and…well, a yoghurt that had been at the back of the fridge for too long," I admitted, rubbing the back of my head. "That…went badly. I did make a whole new antibiotic in the process, though. What are you implying?"

"I've heard rumours that Jack did Eridium experiments on some of the colonists here," Hammerlock said.

I sighed. Had he told me that before Jack decided to toss me out on the trash pile of life, I would have been sceptical. True, I did hear about Dr Samuels and the stuff she was doing at the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve, but I thought those malicious rumours. Malicious, anyway, towards Samuels. She was my mentor, and had taught me everything she knew. She disappeared after some sort of terrorist attack on the Preserve, presumed dead.

But given what had happened now, I was more willing to believe the worst of Jack.

"I dunno whether you're right," I said. "And frankly, I'd rather concentrate on the fact he wants us dead before thinking about his atrocities."

Hammerlock had a strange look at this remark, before handing me the ECHO recorder. "I found this amongst the bandits' belongings. I think they stole it from a stash. Someone was making ECHO recordings during the evacuation from here to Sanctuary."

"So?"

"It's one of a set, apparently. I had just finished listening to it when you came out. My cybernetic leg gets rather stiff in the cold, so would you do me a favour and help me find the other recordings? They're around Liar's Berg."

"As long as I don't have to deal with bullymongs, bandits, or Claptrap, sure," I said. "A bit of exercise might do me some good." Like keeping me warm.

I didn't really like playing the errand boy for Sir Hammerlock, but then again, there were times when Jack sent me to do errands, fetching stuff for him, some of it spurious or even non-existent, just because he could. And Sir Hammerlock, at least, was a better class of person than Handsome Jack. True, he tended to shoot the creatures that he was studying, but then again, this is Pandora. If you don't shoot the animals you're studying, they'll probably end up tearing your face off and wearing it as a jockstrap(1). And Hammerlock at least treated me like I was a human being, rather than as the living punchline to a joke. Or worse.

* * *

As I gathered the recorders, I listened to them, hearing the last minutes of the life of one Helena Pierce. The former administrator of New Haven, she had apparently been heading to Sanctuary via train when it was intercepted by Hyperion forces.

I felt a chill go down my spine when I heard the distinctive, digitally-distorted voice of Wilhelm bellow at the passengers of the train, telling them not to move. Christ Almighty in a Bucket, _Wilhelm_. You'd call him a meathead if it weren't for the fact that there's precious little meat left in or on his head, just circuit boards and alloys. He loved fighting, loves killing, and loves replacing himself with bits of metal and plastic. He'd be like a Cyberman if he didn't have emotions. I was scared of him, and for good reason. Whenever I had one of my episodes, it was often Wilhelm who talked me down. Or rather, held me down while I was forcibly injected with sedative.

And then, Handsome Jack made his appearance. I could hear him strutting just from his voice. Not that he didn't do that anyway whenever I met him, but there was something about him strutting like a peacock that made me want to vomit copiously now. In fact, I was sure I was going to vomit the very breakfast I was yet to have.

Over the course of this second recording and the third, I heard him speak to Helena Pierce, his voice oozing with fake sympathy over the condition of her face. The recorder did display an avatar image of Helena, her face drooping to one side, disfigured by some old injury, her eye milky white. I felt pity for her, especially as she related how she got the scar: through an ill-advised skag-pearl ring. Jack laid on the fake sympathy with a trowel, before shooting her in the head.

The final ECHO recording was worse. Jack was laughing at the way Helena Pierce's head exploded messily, blowing a raspberry to simulate the action of her head being destroyed. He was mocking her death in one of the worst ways possible, before telling Wilhelm to kill the rest. I was back at Hammerlock's as the screaming started.

"She's dead, isn't she?" Hammerlock asked, as he accepted the ECHO recorders from me. "A shame."

"More than that. Jack joked at killing her. We're not talking James Bond-style quips here, we're talking full-blown mockery." I snarled in disgust, sitting down next to Hammerlock. "And those others she was with…Jack set Wilhelm on them. Fucking _Wilhelm_."

"I've heard of him. A mercenary whom Jack hired some time ago, and is now his top enforcer. You know the man, then?"

"If you can call a bucket of bolts like him a man anymore, yeah." Realising who I was talking to, I winced. Hammerlock was a cyborg himself, after all. "Sorry. No offence meant."

"Some taken," Hammerlock said, albeit cheerfully. "But I do accept your apology, old chap."

"I know, I know. You're at least a decent guy. But Wilhelm…I'd frankly prefer facing Knuckle-Dragger again. He was a big brute of a bullymong, but he was just a nasty animal. Wilhelm…he's a fucking _monster_."

* * *

Of course, as far as danger was concerned, I'd rather leave it than take it, so I remained at Liar's Berg while the others did some other dangerous jobs, like finding some better shields at a former Crimson Raider hideout. But I would have to go with them sooner or later to head to Sanctuary. What made it worse is that I'd be doing it in the dubious company of Claptrap.

Even so, Hammerlock and I did have a nice time discussing the various wildlife of Pandora, punctuated, unfortunately, by Claptrap, who seemed to have an opinion on everything we said. As we were having tea at the time, I was very tempted to throw my tea cup at Claptrap, but I didn't want to anger Hammerlock.

"I'm surprised you could get good tea all the way out here," I said to Hammerlock.

"Actually, it's not quite tea. It's a similar plant native to Pandora. It has the charming tendency to try and forcibly…_pollinate_ anything that gets within range."

I blinked, before setting the tea cup down very slowly. "With… the stamens?"

"Of course. The prehensile stamens are rather fascinating…as long as they aren't going for you. Oh, don't worry. The leaves have nothing to do with that, and I had them processed most thoroughly."

"Not at all reassuring," I whimpered quietly.

Even when he gave me a rather lengthy monograph on the Pandoran tea shrub and how the leaves were harvested and processed, I wasn't reassured. The monograph was fascinating, but not particularly good reading for those with delicate natures. And while I couldn't call myself delicate, I was certainly disturbed and squicked out. I wouldn't drink any Pandoran tea again if I could help it, which probably meant that, sooner or later, given my luck, I would.

I had just finished with the monograph when the others got back. It seemed the time had finally come to go with Claptrap. He had explained to us earlier that he had once been in the possession of Captain Flynt, and that Flynt had, in his possession, a boat we could take to Three Horns, and Sanctuary.

The fast travel system could have taken us there, but we needed the codes, and everyone, including myself, doubted that the Crimson Raiders would hand them out over an ECHO connection. I wanted to stay with Sir Hammerlock and wait until the others came back, but it was pointed out that I was still former Hyperion, and I wasn't wholly trusted. It was better to have me with them so that I could be watched (they conveniently ignored the fact that they had left me alone with Sir Hammerlock earlier: I guess watching me squirm was another factor with Salvador and Axton). Salvador and Axton were the most vocal proponents of this viewpoint, and the others agreed. And frankly, I was outnumbered, six to one.

"Don't look so glum, Doctor," Maya said, trying to sound reassuring as we followed Claptrap. "Just point the Maliwan SMG at whatever's shooting at you. Most of these bandits don't even have shields."

"Yeah, but they also have a reckless disregard for my safety. What's the difference between you guys and them?"

"I wouldn't say we have a _reckless_ disregard," Axton smirked. "Anyway, you handled yourself well enough against Knuckle-Dragger."

"I needed Zer0 to haul my arse out of the fire!"

"It's pronounced 'ass'. What's with you, are you a Limey?"

"Australian…originally," I said. "Well, that's where my family came from. But that's not that point! Knuckle-Dragger nearly eviscerated me, and I dunno about you guys, but internal organs work best when they _stay_ internal!"

"Your noises are scraping across my barbed wire, jaundice-sack," Krieg growled, not quite yelling in his usual tone, or at his usual volume, though no less threatening for it. We were passing by a small bandit settlement that the others had dealt with. Judging by the way they had been ripped apart, I guessed either Krieg's buzz-axe or the claws of Deathtrap had a terminal argument with them. The former seemed likely.

"And my lug-holes thank you for not caterwauling, Krieg," I replied acidly.

Any developing argument was halted when Jack decided to make himself known over the ECHOnet. "Hey there! How're you doin' guys?" he said through a mouthful of something, before muttering "Damn, these pretzels suck."

"I thought you could pay top dollar for those, Jack," I snarked back. "Someone must've seen you coming, as the actress said to the bishop."

"Wow, I thought I'd have to wait until a bandit ripped it out to see whether Dick had a spine. Actually, I just bought a pony made of diamonds. 'Cos I'm rich, you know what I'm saying? I thought of calling it 'Dick' in honour of you, but that's just puerile. Piss-For-Brains? Butt Stallion? Ugh, those are worse. Tell you what, I'll try and come up with a better name."

"You're not creative enough, Jack-Hole," Axton snarked back.

"Well, hello Mr Pot. My name is Mr Kettle. Did I mention how black you look this morning? I'm creating plenty. In any case, you've got more to worry about than what I'm sending your way. After all, Dick there hasn't told you everything about himself. You see, I have quite a few people who some people call monsters, and Dick, until recently, was one of them. Of course, when they're on my leash, they aren't really hurting people. But when they're off the leash…Dick there may look like a sheep, and most of the time, he IS a sheep. But back him into enough of a corner, and he'll make wolves look cuddly by comparison. And he's been off the meds we fed him for a bit too long, so soon, you'll start seeing the results. Bye for now!"

They were all looking at me after that. I sighed. "Well?"

"Anything we should know?" Maya asked.

"Yes. When I start screaming in anything but fear, run like you've got Krieg on your arse…if he was evil. THAT'S how bad it can be. Especially if I yell two words."

"Oh yeah? And what are these scary words, _cabron_?" Salvador sneered.

I looked him in the eyes, and said, "'For Science!'"

"Wow. Kickass battlecry," Gaige said, and the sad thing was, she was being sincere.

The others, however, were looking at me in varying degrees of bemusement, disbelief, and contempt. The only two (besides Gaige) who I think believed me were Zer0 and Maya. Then again, those three were the most intelligent here.

And then, Handsome Jack had Butt Stallion say hello. It was probably the friendliest thing Jack had ever done in some time. Or would do again. When Gaige expressed amazement that a living pony made of diamonds could exist, I told her that it was possible. Just very bloody expensive and complicated. The technology used to create such an organism was prohibitively expensive. One such pony would be worth far more than its weight in diamonds. In fact, it'd cost as much as a moon.

* * *

Along the way, Claptrap clarified one of Captain Flynt's threats, saying that Boom-Bewm was one of Flynt's top lieutenants, and a member of the charmingly named Ripper clan of bandits. However, he neglected to mention that Boom-Bewm was in fact two bandits: Boom, who was perched on top of a huge cannon, and Bewm, a midget brother with a jetpack and a shotgun.

Upon seeing us, Boom screamed delightedly, "LIGHT THE FUSES, BITCHES! I'M READY TO BLOW!"

**BOOM AND BEWM **

**Big Brotherly Bonds by Blowing Bodies to Bloody Bits, Bitch.**

As was my usual idiom in such pitched battle, I dove for the nearest bit of cover. As I poked my head up, wondering if I could slag one of them, I saw that Boom had the cannon pointed in my direction.

I was up and running, only to be picked up and hurled by a giant fist. Well, a metaphorical giant fist, unless fists made of explosive energy, heat, and pain count. I landed badly in the snow, the back of my suit making a hissing noise that I barely heard over the ringing in my ears. As I struggled to my feet, I found that Bewm was beside me, giggling through that damn welding mask-like helmet as he raised his shotgun to blow my brains out.

The twinge in my head happened again. It had happened on and off over the past little while. I didn't want it to happen, but I was going to die. And frankly, giving in to stay alive was, well…no contest.

So I let the revoltingly familiar sensation wash over me. I close my eyes…and when I open them again, it's like I was blind before. But now, I could see. Fuck, _I COULD SEE_.

_Yes, there, there, and there_.

With a smooth movement, I aimed the Maliwan at Bewm. I fired a shot to the left of his groin, where the armour was necessarily lessened in order to allow movement. As he screamed, I turned the gun onto his own, firing at just the right point to set the ammo magazine on fire, and cause it to blow up. Thanks to my calculations, the magazine was at the right angle to explode so that I wasn't affected. Bewm, however, was missing a hand, and his armour wasn't looking so good.

"Bewm," I said. When he raised his head to just the right angle, I shot through the glass visor, splattering his brains all over the snow. "Headshot."

The back of my suit was still smouldering, but I didn't care. The smoke probably made me look more intimidating. The others, even Boom and his Psycho comrades, were all staring at me. And it was probably just as well. I had the biggest shit-eating grin on my face, showing more teeth than a shark, raising my pistol to the sky triumphantly. It would have looked better if it was a rifle or something bigger, but hey, I was deep in the Sci-Zone, and at the moment, I wasn't coming out any time soon.

In a bellow that Krieg would have been proud of, I yelled, "**_I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE! AND I BRING YOU…FIRE! FOR SCIENCE!_**(2)"

**DOCTOR RICHARD SNYDER **

**When he stops running, that's the time for YOU to run.**

**CHAPTER 4 ANNOTATIONS:**

**Holy shit. Snyder's just revealed his Action Skill: The Sci-Zone! While I will go into what a gameplay analogue would be like in the next chapter's notes, like I said, when I saw what Nisha's Action Skill from the Pre-Sequel entailed, I thought, 'That's nearly what I had in mind'. Like I said, more detail next chapter.**

**Thanks, MrGreen37, for your praise. And Handsome Jack ****_is_**** a dick. I'll leave it to other writers to humanise him. I will have more of 'Uncle John' later, the man that would turn into Jack, but Jack, by the events of ****_Borderlands 2_****, is beyond redemption. He says, with a straight face (or mask) that he's the hero of the story, and yet, he scooped out the eyeballs of someone who defied him with a spoon. That's sick shit.**

**I did sort of reference the whole Krieg is a Large Ham thing. Why else would Snyder (and by proxy, me) compare him to Brian Blessed? He goes on and on about bacon: no wonder he's so hammy.**

**And by the way, sorry for saying that the last chapter would be the last one for a while. I underestimated how much this one has grabbed me. Just don't get too comfortable with such quick writing: knowing me, it won't last.**

**1\. A reference to one of the missions Hammerlock gives you in ****_Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate Booty_****. I like how they called the bullymong in that one Grendel, after one of the monsters in ****_Beowulf_****.**

**2\. With the exception of 'For Science', Snyder is quoting the beginning of Arthur Brown's song ****_Fire_****. You can hear this part of the song in ****_The Young Ones_**** episode ****_Boring_****. Jeremy Clarkson quotes this song when he gets to use a chainsaw in the ****_Top Gear Bolivia Special_****. Of course, while 'for science!' is the catchcry of a ridiculous amount of mad scientists, I was specifically inspired by those of ****_Girl Genius_****.**


	6. Chapter 5: The Sci-Zone

**CHAPTER 5:**

**THE SCI-ZONE**

Everything was _so_ clear. The world was clearly delineated into its strengths and weaknesses. Everything seemed so fascinating. I wondered what Maya, Krieg, and Zer0's innards looked like. They were very much the enigmas of the group. The Siren, the Psycho, and the Number. But innards held no secrets. It's no wonder the auguries of ancient times consulted the guts of animals. They had the right idea, just not how to do it.

No. Focus. Focus on staying alive. Investigation by vivisection later when you weren't going to be crudely vivisected yourself. Case in point: one of Boom's Psychos had regained his nerve and was running for me with a blade in hand, screaming, "I'm gonna beat you to life!"

Time slowed. His neck was invitingly bare. Exsanguination ahoy!

Slapping the pistol's elemental setting to 'explosive', I dived to the side and fired. The round, had it been normal, would have destroyed his carotid artery, leading to fatal blood loss, and possibly destroyed his brainstem, being a somewhat more instant way of death. The explosive round could have been considered overkill, but frankly, when there's a homicidal maniac looking to vivisect you instead of the other way around, there's no such thing.

Handsome Jack was wrong. Exploding heads weren't funny. But they were beautiful. You just had to be in the right frame of mind to appreciate it. I saw the scarring of Eridium scarring on part of…was that the frontal lobe(1)? Hard to tell. Too much damage to the brain matter by this point. The brain tissue sailed past me in slow-motion, before hitting the snow with a sizzle.

"Null hypothesis confirmed," I said, getting back to my feet. "Running screaming at someone with a gun is a _bad idea!_"

Another hypothesis, this time the alternative hypothesis, was confirmed. Shooting Boom's brother Bewm meant that Boom was going to, using rigorous scientific nomenclature, lose his shit. He just needed time to get over the initial shock of seeing his brother and fellow bastard's brains decorating the snowy ground. He screamed angrily, before yelling, rather predictably, "I'LL KILL YOU!"

His attention was focused on me. Great. I'd managed to attract the aggro. The fear had been purged from my mind, but not the sense of self-preservation. And Boom was operating a big fucking cannon. That tended to put things into perspective.

Even so, I laughed with the sheer hateful joy of being free again. I pulled another shield grenade from my pockets. Time to see if it could withstand such a cannon blast. Then its awesomeness would be…canon.

Oh, come on! That was gold! You guys have no appreciation of art!

I activated it a split-second before the cannon shot exploding death my way. Alternative hypothesis confirmed. The shield grenade stood up to the blast, and I was still standing, alive, and well. More than a little deafened, thanks to the blast, but it gave me enough time to begin firing the Maliwan SMG at Boom's head, who ducked into the 'cockpit' of the cannon to avoid the shots. That gave me enough time to find better cover that would stand up to the cannon for longer.

Once there, behind a massive container, I timed the times between shots. It took at least five seconds between shots from the big cannon. "GET OUT FROM BEHIND THERE, YOU FUCKING COWARD!" Boom screamed, even as I heard the shots from the others ring out.

The moment the next shot from his big cannon hit the container, I was out and running, only to find it moot, anyway. The others had decided to attack the cannon, and I was treated to seeing it explode, Boom flying through the air.

Null hypothesis confirmed. They just don't make them like they used to.

Boom, however, was far from out. In mid-air, he activated his own rocketpack, and began speeding towards me. Impressive, I'll admit that.

Now, I had a chance to take the shot, or get out of the way. I put a greater premium on self-preservation, as mentioned, so I dived out of the way with a giggle, before shooting the rocketpack as he landed. As it began to scream flame, he surprisingly showed enough presence of mind to unbuckle it and throw it at me.

I had to dive out of the way of that. Shooting it would tax my normal shields too much with the explosion, and letting it hit me was just stupid. Unfortunately, Boom was quick, running at me before I could get to my feet. He shoved the muzzle of his shotgun into my neck. "Any last words, bitch?" he hissed, rather like a snake. The venom in his words also helped him approach an ophidian nature.

I looked behind him, and smiled. "Not last words per se, but have you ever experienced an impromptu corpus callosotomy(2)?"

"A what-what?" Unfortunately, those were _his_ last words, and not very good ones at that. I mean, beyond a sort of incoherent gibbering when Krieg's buzz-axe was embedded deep in his skull.

"Alternative hypothesis confirmed!" I declared, getting to my feet and pointing to the sky in triumph, a big grin splitting my face. "Krieg _does_ have a sense of comic timing!"

"JAUNDICE-SACK'S MIND IS FULL OF BACON!" Krieg yelled elatedly as he ripped his buzz-axe from the late and unlamented Boom's skull, and I could tell by the tone of voice that he was giving me a huge compliment.

Something came together in my mind. Eridium scarring…brains…Eridium scarring of neural tissue is one of the prominent creators of Psychos. I thought back to my conversation with Maya. Why did I know about Eridium and Sirens being linked?

Because, thanks to Claptrap, we had samples of Steele's corpse. And while working with dead tissues wasn't ideal, we still saw the Eridium, in eensie-weensie organelles inside the cells(3).

So Sirens were humans, and human women, who could survive Eridium exposure. Maybe there was the potential for some sort of prophylactic measure. Not prophylactic like you're thinking, get your mind out of the goddamn gutter, but preventative. Why didn't I think of that before? If I could get Maya on a table, take her apart cell by cell and gene by gene(4)…

No. No way in hell. Her eyes were narrowing at the hungry look I was giving her. Anyway, she was rather too nice to take apart. I needed to find a Siren who was also a bitch. Tall order, considering that there were supposedly only six in existence at any one time. I knew two of them, and both were quite decent.

Oh well. File that away in the useful pile. Note to self: find another Siren like Commandant Steele.

Just as well, too. I fought against the familiar tide of tiredness, exhaustion, and morality. Oh, it's been so long since I had done this. I must've burned myself out. I used to be in the Sci-Zone for hours at a time. It's been maybe two or three minutes at most…

_Well, this is gonna suck_, I thought. _Here come the old chains again_…

I closed my eyes, briefly, falling to the ground…

…and when I opened them again, I was back to normal. Well, if you called covered in the blood of your enemies normal. Krieg and Salvador probably would.

Maya was standing over me, not aiming her gun at me, but not helping me up either. "What…the _fuck_…was that?" she said, slowly and deliberately.

"That…" I said, getting to my aching feet, "…was the Sci-Zone."

"The what-zone?" Axton asked.

"The Sci-Zone, or Super Cognitive Interpretation Zone. Or Science Zone, if you prefer."

"Through eyes of madness,

He saw the whole world in terms

Of weakness and strength."

Trust Zer0 to speak aptly, and in a haiku. I nodded. "How did you know?"

"I met once before

Another with your dark curse.

Mad scientist's eyes."

Ah. So that's how he knew when he mentioned something earlier. "You could say that. It's pretty rare. The disorder is given a lot of names: Malign Hypercognitive Dementia, Malign Hypercognitive Disorder, Aperture Syndrome, the Madness Place…"

"The Spark," Gaige said.

"Yeah, that too(5)." I rubbed the back of my head sheepishly, only to realise I was rubbing bits of blood and brain into my hair. Struggling not to vomit, I continued. "The upshot is, it's almost, but not quite, like a split personality. It's more like a switch gets flicked in my head. It's still the same me, it's just that…my morality goes bye-bye. I'm not quite insane, it's more like I see the world more simply. As test subjects and experiments. And I can see weak points, particularly on living organisms. Robots and cyborgs…not so much. That's why, if Handsome Jack saw me in the Sci-Zone, he sent Wilhelm after me."

"Wilhelm? The cybernetic mercenary?" Axton asked.

"Yeah. The upshot is, I understand where to hit to get a critical injury on an enemy if I am fighting someone. Most of the time, though, when it happens, I'm in a lab, so I'm often making equipment do what it shouldn't do. Jack only tolerates it because it gets results. Plus, he doesn't care about the trauma I leave behind. I've been better about it, but let's just say that I'm singlehandedly responsible for Jack instituting a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder policy at Hyperion."

"Killed anyone?" Maya asked.

"Besides just then?" I said, indicating Bewm. "I don't know. I know three people haven't survived my experiments while I was in the Sci-Zone. There may be more. I do remember what happens, it's just that Jack ushered people out pretty quickly when it happens. That's the first time it happened in a combat situation. Well, other than fighting Wilhelm."

I saw them all looking at me, before Salvador grinned. "That was fucking _awesome_. You should be like that more often."

Oh great. I got the approval of the Bloodthirsty Machine Gun-Wielding Hispanic Napoleon(6).

I sagged, only for Maya to clap me on the shoulder, only to wipe what she found there on a nearby crate. "Don't worry about it. It worked out well enough."

"This time, at least. You know how you asked me earlier if I wanted to experiment on you? In the Sci-Zone…well, you know what vivisection entails, right?"

Maya wrinkled her nose. "Right. Well, you're nice when you're out of the Sci-Zone. But when you're in it, if you do try to vivisect me, I will return the favour: pre-emptively."

"Noted," I said, nodding vigorously.

"Minions!" Claptrap shouted. "Enough of discussing whether Dick is insane! Of course he is! But he's also a good minion!"

Oh Christ, he's talking again.

The rhomboid robot trundled over to a nearby gate, presumably leading to Captain Flynt, and grumbled. It was firmly locked. But then, he had an idea. And for once, it was a good one. "Minions! There's a digistruct regeneration button on the side of that cannon! Press it, and then let's use the cannon to destroy this gate!"

We went over, and true enough, there was a button on the side of the cannon. Gaige pressed it, and in a flare of blue light, the cannon was as good as new(7). "Now," Claptrap said, turning to face the gate, "you'll have to shoot here, where I'm standing…"

He went along in this vein for a while, and I begged, "Please, can I?"

"Roshambo you for it," Axton said with a grin.

It was by sheer luck that I won the ensuing games between me, Axton, and Salvador. But I guess after the horror of being in the Sci-Zone, and all the other crappy stuff that happened to me, I got to have a go. Besides, Claptrap units were ridiculously hardy. And I didn't count him as a human being, or any sentient life-form.

So, I clambered into the cannon (noticing that someone, presumably Boom, had scrawled in a messy script 'Big Bertha'), manoeuvred it so that it was pointing at Claptrap and the gate. Then, I pressed the button.

Claptrap and the gate disappeared in a plume of smoke and flame, and Claptrap screamed. Unfortunately, the blast didn't really damage him much, I don't think. I saw a glimpse of a yellow and black rhomboid hurtling through the air(8). I couldn't help it. I laughed.

"Didn't Angel say the robot was our way to Sanctuary?" Maya asked, raising a disapproving eyebrow.

Oh crap. I'd forgotten about that.

**CHAPTER 5 ANNOTATIONS:**

**A rather short chapter, this one (these annotations will probably be longer), but full of revelations. So, we now know Snyder's Action Skill: the Sci-Zone. Like Nisha's own skill, it gives Snyder the ability to auto-aim, so to speak. Unlike Nisha, he targets critical hits swiftly. Unlike in the story, though, it wouldn't last very long, maybe a few seconds without additions to the skill trees.**

**Also note that it isn't quite like Krieg. Snyder does ****_not_**** suffer from multiple personalities. If you've read ****_Girl Genius_****, you'll see that even moral Sparks (the comic's name for mad scientists, along with 'Madboys' and other charming epithets) get looser with their morality when they're in 'the Madness Place', which was the original name for the Sci-Zone. I changed it partly because despite appearances, Snyder doesn't quite go insane when this happens. If anything, he is what the late, great Terry Pratchett would call 'super-sane'. He is functional and rational, but his empathy has gone by the wayside, at least temporarily. ****He hates himself afterwards, though. Snyder, normally, is a very moral person, albeit stuck in an immoral company. And while this is a self-insert/author surrogate character, this is obviously not what I am like IRL.**

**By the way, the way that Snyder uses the terms null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis while in the Sci-Zone is not actually scientific, or even correct. These terms come from statistics. A null hypothesis is basically one that there is no correlation between two phenomena. An alternative hypothesis states that there is a correlation. So, by way of an example, a null hypothesis on drink driving is that alcohol consumption is not related to road accidents, while the alternative hypothesis states that alcohol consumption is related. In case you're wondering, I support the view that drink drivers are bloody idiots, to quote the old ad.**

**Here, I've modified it for the sake of the story. The null hypotheses here are either generally held truisms or knowledge (to whit, the blindingly obvious), or else things that aren't certain, while the alternative hypothesis are things that aren't readily known, or need testing. I sort of hybridised it with some parts of the scientific version of a hypothesis, as well as modifying it for humour's sake. Actually, the 'hypothesis' schtick of Sci-Zone Snyder is partly inspired by the Mythbusters, and partly by the Twelfth Doctor (from ****_Doctor Who_****) having a habit of saying 'Question' and 'Conjecture' like he's discussing scientific principles. Of course, Sci-Zone Snyder is also not like these guys in any regard.**

**I thought how to end the chapter, and thought to do so on Claptrap being shot by the cannon. Which is hilarious in-game.**

**1\. I read the ****_Borderlands_**** Wiki page on the Psychos, and it was said that they went insane while working in a mine or mines. Combine that with Krieg having undergone Eridium experiments, and it's not an unreasonable conclusion. **

**2\. The corpus callosum is a sort of bridge between the two hemispheres of the brain, allowing the two halves to communicate with each other. A corpus callosotomy is a surgical procedure for severing this bridge, and is a treatment for epilepsy, though this does have some side-effects. Of course, Krieg is not interested in his patient surviving the surgery. I thought of this quip after watching ****_A Meat Bicycle Built for Two_****, where Krieg's first Rat victim gets the same treatment. I even included the similar detail of Boom gibbering in the same way that the Rat did.**

**3\. Organelles are small structures within cells that has a specific function. Mitochondria, for example, produce energy, while chloroplasts are what plants use for photosynthesis. And the cell's nucleus, where the DNA is, is an organelle as well.**

**4\. This is a reference to an almost identical line from ****_Doctor Who: The Two Doctors_****, where a scientist (and former friend of the Doctor) called Dastari is trying to figure out where the symbiotic nuclei of Time Lords (a key component of Time Lord time travel tech) is. He tells the Second Doctor that he's going to take him apart 'cell by cell, and gene by gene' until he finds what he is looking for.**

**5\. I just referenced, either directly or not, the webcomic ****_Narbonic_**** (which is the only thing listed here in this note I haven't read), the superhero novel ****_Soon I Will Be Invincible, Portal 2_****, and ****_Girl Genius_****.**

**6\. Isn't this a rather pithy summary of Salvador? Then again, Napoleon wasn't that short, ironically. He was five and a half feet or nearly 170 centimetres, average for that time. He towers over Salvador.**

**7\. I'm pretty sure you can disable the cannon in the game, and yet you're able to use it to shoot the gate. This is my attempt to reconcile that.**

**8\. My explanation for how Claptrap survived the explosion, but was nowhere to be seen, and how he got to Flynt first. He was basically sent hurtling through the air by the blast.**


	7. Chapter 6: A Flynt-y Reception

**CHAPTER 6:**

**A FLYNT-Y RECEPTION**

It took us some time to find Claptrap again. Between him and us were Captain Flynt's men. Then again, with the exception of me, we were a bunch of badasses and psychopaths. I remember the way my eyes bulged out when Flynt, cockily, opened the gate to his fortress, and sent some of his more psychotic underlings after us, and Krieg went on what can only be described as a rampage.

When I'm in the Sci-Zone, blood and gore doesn't mean much to me. But when I'm normal and sane, I get fairly queasy. And while they were all bastards and probably deserved death a hundred times over, seeing Krieg slash through them with ease was sickening, though his bizarre comments did help alleviate things. Like talking (well, yelling at the top of his voice) about nipple salads. The non-sequiturs were so strange, I couldn't help but chuckle nervously. It was either that, or vomit at the piles of offal and blood he left in his wake.

As it turned out, Claptrap (via a confession through ECHOnet) had tried to stage a mutiny on Flynt's ship, the Soaring Dragon, which was now part of his fortress. Unfortunately, that didn't go so well, apparently. And now, Flynt's men were going all Clockwork Orange on his yellow, metal arse. A shame we had to rescue him, but as Maya rightly pointed out, we needed the little metal shit to get to Sanctuary.

Meanwhile, Flynt broadcasted an offer to us: agree to become his new torture dolls alongside Claptrap, and he wouldn't hand us over to Handsome Jack. Well, talk about Morton's Fork. Of course, none of the Vault Hunters were game (although I swear Krieg got a strange glint in his eyes), and I am certainly averse to receiving pain. And, as long as I'm not in the Sci-Zone, inflicting it.

We finally found Claptrap being kicked around like a metal rhomboid football by Flynt's men. After they were killed, Claptrap, daring the universe to prove him wrong, squealed, "Suck it, Flynt! My minions are bona-fide badasses!"

We moved on, with Claptrap inane and irritating chatter continuing all the while. Unfortunately, his good mood lasted until we got to some stairs leading further into Flynt's lair.

He snarled, "Stairs?! Dammit, I can't climb those!"

All the anger at him that had been percolating inside of me (and only slightly relieved by my shooting a big bloody cannon at him) broke out like pus from a burst pimple. "What the hell are you, a Dalek? Oh, wait, DALEKS **_CAN_** FLY UP STAIRS! And they have a FUCKING DEATH RAY! That means you are officially more worthless than a militarised trash can with a genocidal mutant octopus piloting it!"

A heavy silence followed, broken only by Maya. "…You know what? That's weirder than half the stuff Krieg spouts. The hell's a Dalek?"

"Haven't you ever heard of _Doctor Who_?" Gaige asked, seemingly personally offended.

"I grew up in a monastery, Gaige. I had a pretty big library, true, but not much TV," Maya retorted.

"THE ANGELS HAVE THE PHONE BOX!(1)" Krieg bellowed at the top of his lungs. Oh god, the homicidal maniac was a Whovian.

"Look, can't we just…I dunno, carry Claptrap up the stairs or something?" I asked, trying to get the conversation back on track.

As one, the others all turned to me. I realised what they thought quite swiftly. I groaned, "I am SO not into manual labour…"

* * *

My protests fell, as they often did, on deaf ears, and I found myself pulling Claptrap up the stairs. He was a heavy little POS, but eventually, by the time we got to the top of the stairs, and it was mostly catwalks and ramps, the others had cleared the way.

There were some shipping containers being used as sleeping quarters by Flynt's men. I poked my head into one to see Axton and Salvador all but drooling over posters of…

My eyes widened. "Hey, isn't that Mad Moxxi?" I asked, noticing that she was clad either in lingerie, or little at all.

"Yeah," Gaige said, who was sitting by the entrance, checking her cybernetic arm. "You wanna go and have a look?" she asked wryly.

"I…I think I'll pass. I've met the real deal before."

"What? Seriously?" Axton said, rushing over to me. "You met her? What was she like?"

"…Flirty." I rubbed the back of my head. "I couldn't go much further than that. She was Handsome Jack's lover for a time. And you don't mess with Jack's squeeze. At least until she messed with him. I guess she was nice, in a sultry kind of way. But…not my sort."

"Dude, how can Moxxi not be your sort? Are you gay? Not that there's anything wrong with that."

"And you have a phallic sentry gun you call the Missus," I retorted. "What does that say about you?"

Axton, to my disbelief, merely laughed that off. "That's a good one, Dick."

"Doctor. Richard. Snyder," I ground out through gritted teeth. "And…if you must know, there's a girl. Another one. We've been friends since I was a kid, but I haven't seen her for ages, until recently." I decided to tell a version of the truth. "She's Jack's daughter. That was why I was put onto the train. She contacted me via ECHO, and he decided I had to die."

It was true. Of course, I left out the fact that (A) she was a Siren, and (B), she was Angel. After all, Angel did warn me that it could bring Jack's wrath even further down on these people, and frankly, they had saved my arse enough that they didn't deserve Jack coming down on them even more than he was already.

"Wow. Harsh," Axton said. "Knew the dude was a douche, but you'd think he'd wait until he caught you in bed before he did somethin' like that."

"He only needs the slightest excuse," I sneered.

I looked back briefly at the photos of Moxxi, thinking back to her. She was nice, if somewhat overly flirtatious. I had to admit, that sexy Mad Hatter look was marvellous. And to give her credit, she backed off once she realised I was holding out for someone else. I didn't know how she managed it, but she has two adult children…well, children who were technically adults. Both were obsessed with cars. I knew of Scooter. Even at Hyperion, there were few who wouldn't have. A savant when it came to cars and vehicles, but in every other matter, he was a few chromosomes short of a karyotype, possibly quite literally(2). The other one I didn't know as much of, save for her name, Ellie, and her stature, which could be politely said to be rotund.

I remembered what Jack called her after their break-up. "Old Balloon Tits", he had called her. Made some rather disgusting comments that involved comparing prime rib and beef jerky as a fellatio metaphor(3). I wondered how she felt about these posters all around Pandora? I noticed a nearby portable toilet with a crudely written sign on the side: "DOOK HUT. NO FAPPING!(4)" I couldn't help but snort at this. That they saw the need to put up a sign said it all, really.

* * *

We made our way further up the Soaring Dragon, and realised we must be getting close to Captain Flynt's lair proper. A couple of vending machines stood at the ready, and I picked up a few standard grenades from the Marcus Munitions one. I preferred not to get up and personal for my fights, so chucking a few grenades might help.

"Nervous?" Maya asked as I plucked the grenades from the vending machine.

"Shitting my pants," I said deadpan. Not literally, but frankly, I was not looking forward to this, despite Claptrap's opinion on the matter.

"You think you can get into the Sci-Zone again?" she asked.

"I don't know. It's been so long since I was in it," I confessed. "Like many other things, it doesn't mix well with performance anxiety. I don't know how well I'll do."

"Well, try your best. Not to die, anyway," Maya said, with a smile that was meant to be reassuring. Unfortunately, I don't think I was capable of being reassured.

We dropped down onto the deck of the former ship, and it was then that I noticed a lot of pipes running to vents…or were they burners?

Oh, shit. I had a bad feeling about this.

Claptrap, regardless, shouted, "Captain Flynt, your Claptrap unit had returrrrned!"

Suddenly, flames burst out of the vents. Gaige gave a shriek, diving away from one that nearly burnt her. And then, at the far end, on a throne where the dragon's head was, stood a figure.

Captain Flynt was impressive, I'll give him that. Massive, armoured, and bulky, piggy eyes peering out from the slits of a massive horned helmet, like a latter-day Viking made of scrap metal. Raising an anchor effortlessly in one hand, he yelled, "It's our new torture dolls, boys. LET'S TURN UP THE HEAT!"

**CAPTAIN FLYNT **

**He loves the smell of a barbecue, especially when it's cooking YOU.**

He then leapt off with surprising agility for a guy of his size and girth.

"SPHINCTERS! I AM SO SORRY, MR FLYNT!" Claptrap wailed.

I decided to do something a bit more productive with my fear and cowardice, so I opened fire with the Maliwan SMG Maya gave me. I couldn't keep it steady, but it, along with the hail of gunfire the others opened up with, made Flynt and a small army of Psychos and Marauders dive for cover.

Unfortunately, I didn't quite hear Axton yelling about a grenade coming our way. At least until it went off, and sent me hurtling through the air. I hit the ground (or should that be deck?) hard, but worse, I began skidding down the slope. You see, the deck of this ship was angled, and covered in ice. That, plus the momentum from the blast, sent me skidding towards the edge. No railing, you see. One thing I will give Handsome Jack is that in his facilities, he at least makes sure to repair railings.

Cold comfort, of course, given that I end up dangling by one hand over a drop that may not necessarily kill me with Pandora's relatively low gravity, but would certainly mean that I would need to be in a vat for a few weeks, or else in a wheelchair for the rest of my life.

Oh, and joy of joys, Captain Flynt decides to strut over and begin grinding his boot into my hand. I'd ask, mentally, how the day could possibly get any worse, but that'd be daring the universe. I couldn't actually see his face, but I could tell that he was grinning widely beneath that goddamn helmet of his. And then, he lifted his foot off my hand. And naturally, I fell.

For all of three feet.

I still had my eyes open, and I couldn't believe what had happened anyway. I was surrounded by a field of blue and purple energy. Maya had Phaselocked me. Even better, she was lifting me away from the drop, and over one of the catwalks we had walked along to get to Flynt. And just in time, too. I landed heavily, hearing the frustrated howl of Flynt.

I ran back to the deck/arena, only to find it all but over. Which was somewhat anticlimactic. Flynt was on his knees, waving his pistol, only to get run through from behind by Zer0's sword.

"Die on my blade, Flynt,

Trouble this harsh world no more,

Go to Perdition."

Flynt offered nothing coherent as a rebuttal to Zer0's haiku. Well, save for a gurgle. Like I said, anticlimactic.

I looked over at Maya, and rubbed the back of my head sheepishly. "Thanks for saving me."

"Any time," she said with a smile. I noticed Krieg glowering at me. Oh God, did he have a crush on her? And did he see me as a romantic rival? Fuck, that was all I needed.

* * *

As it turned out, Claptrap's boat wasn't the Soaring Dragon, which was well and truly marooned. Rather, it was a smallish barge that was kept beyond where Flynt had been seated. I sighed, but even with Claptrap piloting this vessel, it seemed like we were that much closer to Sanctuary.

The problem is, what then? What would happen after we got to that city, the home of the Crimson Raiders, and the anti-Hyperion resistance? After all, I was former Hyperion, and I could hazard a guess as to how well I'd be received there...

**CHAPTER 6 ANNOTATIONS**

**In case you're wondering why Snyder can't use the Sci-Zone, he hasn't used it for some time, due to Jack medicating him. Not only that, but he used it for a long time while fighting Boom-Bewm, so the cooldown is longer. Besides, I didn't want him to be always a badass in combat, hence him nearly getting killed by Flynt's actions. Yes, I know Pandora seems to have low gravity, but some of the drops in the game that the characters can survive should cause injury.**

**1\. Yep, it's a quote from ****_Doctor Who: Blink_****. I couldn't resist putting this in: this line was enough of a non-sequitur in the original story (until you get the context), but spoken by Krieg…well, heh heh heh…**

**2\. Karyotype is the term for the number and appearance of a set of chromosomes. Standard human karyotype is for 23 pairs of chromosomes (46 in total). This was also a reference to Angel's later line in the game that Scooter is 'short a few chromosomes'. Which makes me wonder: how old IS Moxxi, really? I mean, she's clearly old enough to have two adult children, and while she's heavily made-up, she still looks pretty damn good. Can't be good genes, either (unless she was VERY lucky), given that she comes from the Hodunks, who seem to not have a gene pool as much as a gene puddle… Then again, she does extol the virtues of exercise and good eating while discussing Ellie…**

**3\. He makes these remarks while you're doing a mission for Moxxi in Opportunity. Funny though they were, my sympathies were with Moxxi. Then again, that's not saying much, given that it's Jack doing the insulting. In most missions where you have to side with either Moxxi or another character, I generally side with her. The only exception was getting Mordecai some booze to get over Bloodwing. I decided to take pity on the poor bugger and give him what he wanted.**

**4\. I find it hilarious that the bandits of Pandora have to put up a sign saying 'no fapping' on their toilets. I forgot whether there was a toilet near these containers with Moxxi's saucy pictures, but I put one there anyway.**


	8. Chapter 7: Sanctuary

**CHAPTER 7:**

**SANCTUARY**

For perhaps the hundredth time in the past few days, my eyes widen, and what I think are my last thoughts run through my head: _Oh shit, I'm gonna die_.

Of course, the events of the past little while have blurred somewhat. After arriving at Three Horns, another frozen arse-end of the world, we witnessed a bridge getting blown up by one of the Crimson Raiders, only for Bloodshot bandits riding a vehicle to jump the gap in pursuit. Then, we tried getting vehicles of our own via the Catch-a-Ride system, only for Scooter to stop us by remotely locking the system, thinking we were bandits.

Angel intervened (she corrected herself after saying 'damn it' to 'darn it': she was my age, she is perfectly capable of swearing), and managed to hack the system(1). I soon wish she hadn't: I was stuck riding in the turret with Gaige, and for all her skills with robotics, she's a shit driver(2). More than once, as we drove through bullymong-infested tunnels and caves, I deterred them not by shooting at them from the turret, but by projectile vomiting onto them. I don't usually get motion sick, but Gaige's driving was bad enough to inflict it. Unfortunately, I had never learned to drive. Why would I, with Fast-Travel and various public transportations available where I lived? In any case, I lived practically next door to my labs back at Hyperion.

We then reached Sanctuary, dispatched the Bloodshots attacking the gates, and gained an audience, at last, with Roland, the infamous leader of the Crimson Raiders, and former Vault Hunter. Of course, what I had known about him was mostly from Handsome Jack, and now I took it with a grain of salt.

His voice was calm and collected and commanding, deep and resonant. I have to confess, though, I still didn't like him. I'm not really fond of soldier types, even if they aren't dicks like Axton.

"_So, you're the Vault Hunters I've been hearing all the ECHO chatter about_," he said via the holographic intercom outside Sanctuary. "_And the Hyperion scientist. Well, Jack's put a bounty on all your heads, and enemies of Jack's can be allies of ours. I need you to do something. We're short on men as it is…_"

As it turned out, one of his men was trying to get a new power core to keep Sanctuary's shields powered up. You see, Handsome Jack made a point of regularly hammering the shields with shots from the lunar satellite. You know the one, the ones that looks like a gigantic 'H' in front of the moon. It's supposed to stand for 'Hyperion', but I've got the feeling that it stands for 'Handsome' nowadays.

It was decided that most of the Vault Hunters would go, and I, along with Maya and Zer0, would stay at the gates. Nominally, it was to see off any further Bloodshot attacks. Truthfully, I was glad for the excuse, as I was sick and tired of running around in this half-frozen wasteland, and didn't want to venture any further. Maya and Zer0 probably wanted to keep an eye on me.

The gate to Sanctuary actually opened, and Roland, along with a couple of his Crimson Raiders, strode by. Tall, burly, and muscular, with a military bearing. Yep, that was Roland all right.

**ROLAND OF THE CRIMSON RAIDERS **

**Once a Vault Hunter, Always Badass, Sometimes a Dork**

He scrutinised us each in our turn. Eventually, he asked me, "Why does Jack want you dead, Dr Snyder?"

"I know too much."

"Really? What do you know?"

"The sort of info that will make sure Jack redoubles his efforts to kill us all if I blab. Plus, I talked to his daughter."

"I didn't know Jack had a daughter," Roland said.

"At the risk of sounding facetious, you don't know Jack when some things are involved."

Roland appraised me carefully, before nodding. "All right. But I'll be keeping my eye on you when I return. No offence intended, but my track record with Hyperion employees isn't great."

"Some taken," I said. "Good luck with your mission, whatever it is."

He nodded again. A nearby Catch-a-Ride provided their conveyances, and they left for wherever they needed to go.

Some hours later, the others came back: they had taken their time finding Reiss, who was dying from an attack by the Bloodshots. They got the power core, and had decimated a nearby Bloodshot camp in revenge for Reiss' death. We were let into Sanctuary, and the power core delivered to one Lieutenant Davis, the man who had originally greeted us with the term 'skaglick' before realising that we were, relatively speaking, friendlies.

Which was where I began. I was watching the Hyperion satellite shoot at Sanctuary, not knowing whether the newly-installed power core would stand up to it. I shrieked rather girlishly as streaks of fire rained down on the shields…which held. We were told to go to Scooter. Contact had apparently been lost with Roland, and Scooter was the one with another plan.

As we walked into the city, which had once been a Dahl mining craft, Angel appeared once more. "How are you doing, Ricky?"

"Staying alive. Staying sane is another matter."

"Yeah, I heard that scream of yours," she said with a wry grin. "But the time may come when our secret will have to be told. You'll know when the time has come. I hope, one day, that we can meet each other again, even if it's for one last time."

Before I could reply, she faded away, and the door to a massive garage was opening. The man sitting at a table within was clad in oil-stained clothes, with a freckled face and a baseball cap. "Aw crap, is y'all Hyperion?" he asked in a high-pitched nasal drawl. Before any of us could answer, he said, "I heard you was all robots, and you ate metal. I knew you robotic bastards would come for me someday. But…I'll tell you one thing." He leapt up onto a pile of tyres with surprising agility and made what was an equally surprising badass pose. "You'll never take me alive, you robotic sumbitches!"

**SCOOTER **

**Great With Vehicles, But Probably Shouldn't Breed**

It took a moment for the message from his eyes to get to what excuse he had for a brain, but he then said, "Oh! Y'all Vault Hunters…except…" His eyes narrowed at me. I forgot that I had a Hyperion logo emblazoned on my now-ruined suit. "Is _you_ Hyperion?"

"Formerly. I left my robot suit at home," I snarked. "And my doctor said I shouldn't eat metal any more. Which is odd, as people try to keep feeding me lead."

Scooter laughed, a cracked braying sound. "Okay, okay, so, why don't y'all introduce yerselves?"

They did, with my turn coming up last. "Doctor Richard Snyder. Expert on Eridium and Sirens, half-insane, and currently too close to the top of Handsome Jack's shitlist for my liking," I said. I had pretty good eyesight, and I cursed that for this moment, as I wanted to push my glasses into position Gendo Ikari style. Say what you like about that bastard, but he had style. Well, with glasses and gloves, anyway. The less said about his creepy facial hair, the better.

Scooter nodded. "Hey, I remember Mom talkin' 'bout you," he said. "Nutty professor, holdin' out for your old girl. Had a tendency to cause screamin' while doin' science and all."

Mom? Oh, right. His mother was Mad Moxxi. "And how is she? Moxxi, I mean."

"Y'all can see for yerself," he said. "She's got a bar here in Sanctuary, Moxxxi's. Lissen, I need one of you to do me a favour…"

* * *

Thankfully, I didn't need to do said favour. Axton volunteered. From what Scooter said (once you got past the mangled excuse Scooter had for English), Roland had an exit strategy in place in case he got captured or went missing. He needed another power core from a black marketeer by the name of Earl. They were going to reactivate the flying capabilities of the mining ship Sanctuary used to be.

I decided to renew an old acquaintance. Even so, I noticed the eyes of Sanctuary's citizens on me. I would have discarded the suit jacket, but it was still cold, even in the small city, so I kept it on.

The music was loud, the atmosphere smoky. I normally wouldn't have walked into an…establishment like this, but I wanted to renew an acquaintance.

"Rick!"

I smiled, a little shakily. There she was, behind the counter, still dressed in that sexy purple Mad Hatter outfit, her makeup the same doll-like style (only not creepy), and her lovely brown hair underneath that top hat. And yep, she still had that small heart tattoo on her breast.

"Hey, Moxxi."

**MAD MOXXI **

**Don't fuck with her, unless she wants you to.**

Her smile was genuine. "Hey, this is a surprise," she said in her sultry voice. "Never thought you'd end up in Sanctuary. Though I guess that's a story and a half. Jack still saying things about me?"

"Yeah. Nasty shit. Never thought I'd see a familiar face here. Or come here at all."

"No kidding. How did you end up here?"

"Long story short, I pissed off Jack. Got dumped on a train with some Vault Hunters, and he blew it up. We survived, and, well, managed to get here. I could tell you more, but you'll probably have customers to serve before I'm done."

"True," she said, polishing the bar rather suggestively. "So, what can I get you?"

I considered a reply carefully. I'm not that big a drinker, though to be honest, the last few days made me reconsider that. Caffeinated beverages were more my thing, but I didn't know whether ordering a cola would be a faux pas here. I hadn't even decided, when the bar began to shake.

I thought, for a moment, that an earthquake was rocking the city. Either that, or the shields had failed, and the moon shots were hitting the city. Then, I remembered Scooter's discussion of the plan. It did little to stifle my panic, but it helped me calm a little. The tremors subsided.

"You're still jumpy, aren't you, Rick?" Moxxi asked. "I remember you. Whenever you weren't in the madness place, you were all but afraid of your own shadow."

Her voice wasn't mocking. It was, perversely enough given her appearance, maternal. But she had always been sympathetic to me, back when she was still with Jack. Flirty, but sympathetic. I replied, "That's because my shadow is what scares me. Tell me, if I ask for a cola, will I get laughed out?"

"Not by me, sugar," Moxxi said kindly. I paid for the can of drink with my share of the money we had pilfered from the bandits we had killed. After a brief consideration, I slid some extra money into the tip jar nearby. I'm not much of a tipper by nature, but for Moxxi, the one friendly face I knew in Sanctuary, I was willing to make an exception(3).

"Thanks, sugar," Moxxi purred. "Any little contribution you can make to the Underdome Restoration Fund is appreciated."

Oh yes, the Underdome. Her famous death arena. I think Jack blew it up. Break-ups. They inspire people to petty and destructive behaviour. Of course, when you have someone like Handsome Jack, who personifies those two terms, it's just bigger. After all, who destroys a big arena because of pique from a failed relationship?

* * *

After my drink, I was found by Gaige. The plan to turn Sanctuary into a flying city failed rather miserably, so it was decided that we needed to track down Roland. Their first port of call was the Crimson Raider's HQ, where they had met Dr Patricia Tannis.

"Wait, not that Dr Tannis?" I asked, clicking my fingers. "The archaeologist and biochemist?"

"I guess so. She's a bit loopy. When we first came in, she thought we were Roland, and besides talking about the Vault and Jack, she also wanted new ventilation. Said the place smelt of bacon, and that bacon is only for sycophants and products of incest."

I snorted with laughter. "You what? Sounds like something Krieg would say if he was saner."

Gaige giggled herself. "Yeah, well, he yelled something about his mind being full of bacon, and she leapt around to face us. Noted we were Vault Hunters. While the others were upstairs, Maya and I told her about you. She seems interested in the links between Sirens and Eridium, and she does want to meet you soon. But she's a bit nuts. She seems to be half in the Sci-Zone most of the time. I asked her, and she claimed to have Asperger's Syndrome. If she does, I'd say she also has way more crazy in her head, the way she acts.(4)"

I nodded. "Autistic spectrum disorders can be co-morbid with other mental problems. I mean, look at me."

"Eh, when you're not in the Sci-Zone, you're just a bit neurotic. Besides, you wishing you had Deathtrap back in school's the highest praise I ever wanted for him." Gaige pursed her lips. "Now, where was I? Oh yeah. Maya and I were talking to Tannis when the others came down. They apparently found a message left in Roland's safe, from some bounty hunter called the Firehawk. Here, I've got the file, I'll transfer it to your ECHO."

The file played, and a digitally distorted voice growled, "_Come to Frostburn Canyon, or people will die._"

I frowned. "Why would the Firehawk do that? I mean, distort their voice?"

"Hunh. Good question. The thing is, Scooter pretty much crapped his pants when he heard this. He reckons the Firehawk has Roland, and we've got to rescue him. Angel came to us and said we all have to go, even you."

I blinked. "I wonder why she didn't contact me?"

Angel promptly appeared in my vision. "Well," she said sheepishly, "I didn't want to ruin your little talk with Moxxi. It was kind of sweet that you treat her better than Dad did. Don't worry, Gaige can't hear me. Listen, you need to get to the Firehawk. The Vault Hunters have the power to stop Jack, and you have the brains, but Roland is the one with the plans. And you have to go into the Firehawk's Lair. You'll see why. Good luck, Ricky."

"Did she just talk to you?" Gaige asked.

I nodded, and sighed, as we walked out of Moxxxi's. "_Ave Caesar, Morituri te salutant_."

"Yeah, I know. Listen, could you head to Marcus' shop? He has a shop here, and we were hoping that you could have him make more of those shield grenades."

I looked at her for a moment, before nodding. Why not? Worth a shot.

* * *

That was an infinitely bad choice of words, when I finally entered Marcus' gun shop. The rotund man was inspecting a weapon that someone, a rather nervous Sanctuary citizen, wanted a refund on. Marcus kneecapped the man and said, cheerfully, "I don't know, works fine for me."

**MARCUS KINCAID **

**Up Your Arsenal!**

I nervously approached the counter, and he looked at me. "Ah, this must be the former Hyperion employee I heard about," he said in a jovial voice that seemed to have a Slavic accent.

"This former Hyperion employee has a name and a question. Doctor Richard Snyder, and, can you replicate these for us?"

"For Hyperion?" Marcus asked as I put a couple of shield grenades on the counter.

"For the Vault Hunters." I looked at the whimpering customer of Marcus. "Umm, is he going to be okay?"

"I'll call Dr Zed in a moment," Marcus said irritably. "He wanted a refund. No refunds for Marcus Munitions. Ah, but this…who made them?"

"A friend of mine in Hyperion's munitions department. It's a short-lived shield that can withstand a lot more than a standard shield, but lasts for perhaps a few seconds at most." The whimpering of the guy on the floor got to me, and with an irritated sigh, I strode out the door, found a Dr Zed vending machine, purchased a health vial, and brought it down to the customer.

"Oh, thank you!" he whimpered, taking the vial gratefully and using it. He then limped out the door, his leg restored by the health vial, if not to normal, then to at least working condition.

"Hey, aren't you going to get that guy to pay for it?" Marcus asked.

"You're a businessman. I'm a doctor. Not quite that kind of a doctor, but I try to do no harm. Whether I succeed is another matter entirely. Anyway, I had enough money for it. So, do you reckon you can replicate those grenades?"

"Sure," Marcus said. He had disassembled one, and was examining it. "It's really just a new way of using existing tech. Nintendo would be proud.(5)"

"What does an old games company have to do with anything?"

Marcus ignored me. Eventually, he said, "I could get these replicated and into Marcus Munitions vending machines within a few hours. I'd need to scan the grenade."

"Thanks." I still left the shop with a bad sense of foreboding. After all, I was going to be facing the Firehawk, and that meant leaving this place…

**CHAPTER 7 ANNOTATIONS:**

**Some nice moments with Scooter, Moxxi, and Marcus. In fact, I thought that Snyder having maybe one friend in Sanctuary to begin with wasn't out of the question, and after that idea of Moxxi and Snyder having known each other somewhat back at Hyperion, the scene in this chapter between the two of them sort of wrote itself. For being someone who enjoys a lot of violence, and is unashamed of her own sexuality, Moxxi is also quite a nice person.**

**Snyder doesn't really like Scooter, though. He's an intellectual snob, and finds it hard to respect anyone with as bad a grasp on English as Scooter. And Scooter, frankly, when it comes to anything but vehicles, is an idiot. As for Marcus, well, Snyder did see him shoot somebody. He's more wary than snobbish, though.**

**Anyway, next chapter will be the meeting between the Vault Hunters, Snyder, and Lilith. Oh, and for fans of Tiny Tina, she's going to be in the story soon!**

**1\. I decided to cut out all that finding the Hyperion loader transmitter unit BS.**

**2\. Not canon, but Nappa/Takahata101 in the ****_Two Saiyans Play_**** videos of ****_Borderlands 2_**** plays Gaige, and is an extremely bad driver. When Vegeta/Lanipator (who is playing Krieg) demands that he drives like a normal person, Nappa retorts that he is. "WHERE ARE THEY FROM?" demands Vegeta, not unreasonably. "Dallas!" Nappa retorts.**

**3\. Tipping is not as common here in Australia, and I'm continually amazed that it seems to be practically compulsory in the US.**

**4\. I read on more than one occasion that Tannis has Asperger's Syndrome. Having it myself, I've said it before, and I will say it again: she has a fuckton more problems than Asperger's. Then again, so does Snyder. I'm relatively lucky by comparison. I 'only' have depression along with these, and that's about it.**

**5\. You might be wondering the same thing as Snyder. What the hell does this have to do with Nintendo? Well, I got this from the book ****_Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America_**** by Jeff Ryan. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to read up on the history of Nintendo and video games. While discussing the creation of the Game Boy, they talk about Gunpei Yokoi's philosophy while designing it to be cheap: ****_Kareta Gijutsu no Suihei Shikou_****. In the book, it is given the awkward (admittedly by the author's own admission) translation of 'Lateral Thinking of Seasoned Technology. I prefer "Old Tech, New Ideas" myself.**


	9. Chapter 8: The Firehawk

**CHAPTER 8:**

**THE FIREHAWK**

_I am the God of Hellfire!_

_And I bring you…_

_Fire! I'll take you to burn._

_Fire! I'll take you to learn._

_I'll see you burn!_

The ancient song played through my headphones as we drove to the entrance to Frostburn Canyon. Thankfully, I was in a car with Zer0, who was a distinctly better driver than Gaige. I kept an eye out in the turret for rakks and bullymongs, but tried to lose myself in the song.

_You fought hard and you saved and you earned,_

_But all of it's going to burn,_

_And your mind, your tiny mind_

_You know you've really been so blind,_

_Now's your time, burn your mind_

_You're falling far too far behind._

_Oh no, oh no, oh no!_

_You're gonna burn…_

Unfortunately, I couldn't enjoy the song as much as I used to. It seemed to be mocking me and my situation. Plus, using the infamous opening while I was in the Sci-Zone did put a pall over it.

_Fire! To destroy all you've done._

_Fire! To end all you've become._

_I'll feel you burn…_

I fired at a rakk that had decided to divebomb us. It died with a wailing screech, drowned mostly out by the song. Then, the lyrics decided to try and mock me.

_You've been living like a little girl,_

_In the middle of your little world,_

_And your mind, your tiny mind,_

_You know you've really been so blind,_

_Now's your time, burn your mind_

_You're falling far too far behind._

With a snarl, I hit shuffle. I got _Komm, Süsser Tod_ instead. Nope. Wasn't in the mood for the happiest song about suicide. Another shuffle, and I got _Blinded by Light_ from _Final Fantasy XIII_. Ah, a badass battle theme. Just what I wanted.

Unfortunately, we reached the entrance to Frostburn Canyon. Then again, we had to fight our way past some pyromaniacal bandits, so the song wasn't all wasted.

After the battle was done, Zer0 indicated for me to take out the earplugs. I did so.

"Music stokes valour,

But deafness to your foes' cries

Invites only death."

"I know, but…eh, you're a badass anyway. You probably don't need music to spur you into battle. Hey, Zer0, what would you have as your battle theme?"

He gestured for me to hand over my music player. I did so, and after a minute, he found a track, which he activated, and handed the music player over to me.

I whistled appreciatively when I heard the music. _Battle with Magus_ from _Chrono Trigger_. Nice(1).

* * *

The instant we entered Frostburn Canyon, we found out that the Bloodshots were after the Firehawk. For some reason, they were making even more of an effort to get the bounty hunter than they usually did. The Bloodshot chieftain was screaming for the Firehawk's blood. Angel told us to follow the rather gruesome signposts, apparently ones the Firehawk did to taunt the Bloodshots. Said signposts were deceased Bloodshot bandits, nailed to posts. I guess the Firehawk liked to send messages. To the Bloodshots, it was either 'stay away', or maybe the Firehawk made like the Spartans and said '_molon labe(_2)'. To us, it was probably the former.

I won't bore you of the details of that arduous and bloody trip. Needless to say, I hated spiderants before, and our further encounters only served to make that hatred worse. But we eventually traversed the trap-laden tunnels that led to the Firehawk's lair. And after some time of being unable to use the Sci-Zone, I could feel it tickling at my mind. It was going to come back very soon.

When we entered, a group of bandits and Psychos were trying to attack something, only for said something to appear in a flare of eye-searing purple light. But as the figure slowly emerged from the purple haze, burning wings slowly fading from their back, I found myself staring. I wasn't expecting the Firehawk to be a woman. I wasn't expecting the Firehawk to be a Siren. And I wasn't expecting the Firehawk to be none other than Lilith, former Vault Hunter and supposed dead woman.

She was dressed in a rather rugged, if revealing outfit, made a little more so by slashes cut through it. Like Maya, she was tall, slender, and exotically beautiful, with eyes of gold and hair of fire. She made a rather cocky pose, and said, "'Sup?"

**LILITH, AKA THE FIREHAWK **

**She Can Burn You With Her Mind**

Maya blinked. "Are you…?"

She didn't get to finish. Lilith sagged to the ground. "Sorry," she gasped. "Fighting off those guys took a lot out of me. Could you get me some Eridium? I have some over there, in one of the boxes."

The lair was, for an improvised lair, pretty good. There were a couple of platforms branching off from a main platform. The branch platforms had various storage units, while the main platform had a computer and surveillance system.

I approached her, carefully. "Are you okay?" I asked.

She looked up at me, and her eyes narrowed. "No…not with someone like _you_ around!" Suddenly, she unleashed a blast of energy that sent me into a wall.

As I shook my head, trying to clear it, I heard, distantly, Gaige yell, "…the fuck was that for?!"

"He's Hyperion," I heard Lilith say. "Why do you care?"

"Once Hyperion,

Now his leash has been severed.

The mad dog bites back."

"…The hell he just said?"

"What Zer0 tried to say," Axton said, "is that Dick got royally shafted by Handsome Jack. Tried to put the moves on Jack's daughter. He's all right. A bit of a coward, but not all of us can be badasses…"

"He's Hyperion. They're all dangerous," she said.

I felt, at those words, the world become clearer, sharper. Epinephrine was sleeting through my veins, and I knew I was sinking into the Sci-Zone. I grinned as I got to my feet. "Right you are, my dear, though you are right for all the wrong reasons," I said, before pointing at her. "You attacked me when I was trying to help! You think I'm dangerous?! Well, LET'S GET DANGEROUS! FOR SCIENCE!"

**DOCTOR RICHARD SNYDER **

**They Called Me Mad! I'll Show Them All!**

"Oh, crap," Maya said, who I noticed had just handed a nugget of Eridium to Lilith. "He's in the Sci-Zone again!"

"The Sci-what?" Lilith asked, straightening, her faculties apparently restored by the Eridium.

I slapped my pistol's elemental switch to Electric. "You hurt me, Siren. Tell me, do you know what _Nemo me impune lacessit_ means?" And then, I fired off a round, only for her to disappear in a flare of purple light.

I looked around. Something in the air screamed at me, and I dove to the side as Lilith emerged from her Phasewalk. Alternate hypothesis confirmed: it was possible to avoid the Phasewalk exit attack.

She looked startled, but regained her composure swiftly. "As a matter of fact, I do. Motto of the Stuart dynasty. _Nobody attacks me with impunity_." Alternative hypothesis confirmed: she did know some Latin phrases.

She raced at me, her fist glowing violet. I activated one of the shield grenades, only to have her manage to break through it, and send me flying again. Only Maya's timely Phaselock saved me from another painful impact. Null hypothesis confirmed: shield grenades do jack shit against a pissed-off Siren's haymaker. "What the hell are you doing?" Maya snarled at the both of us.

"She started it!" I snapped, albeit somewhat petulantly. I glared at Lilith. Null hypothesis confirmed. You cannot, no matter how much you want to, glare someone to death. Unless they have a weak heart, or you have psychic powers.

"Let him down!" Gaige yelped.

"And what, so he'll kill us all?" Lilith demanded, pulling out a pistol and aiming it at me, not paying attention even as the others looked like they might turn on her. "Got any last words, you Hyperion monster?"

I rolled my eyes, only to notice something moving behind the others. In a flash, I yelled what could very well have been my last words, stolen from someone else. "TURN AROUND, PRETTY LADY!"

Lilith seemed confused, but Maya and Krieg got what I meant instantly, and turned to face the onslaught of bandits and Psychos entering the base. Maya dropped me, and I began firing at them. It took Lilith all of a second to realise what was going on, and she got to work. Almost absentmindedly, I flicked the music player to shuffle, and hooked it to the ECHO rather than to earphones. The cave rang to the sound of _The 13__th__ Struggle_ from _Kingdom Hearts __II_. Fuck the hell _yeah_.

I danced my little dance of targeting the weak points of the bandits. Really, the human body is ridiculously frail. The Psychos in particular were too easy: other than their masks, they didn't wear any armour, or any clothes apart from their trousers and shoes. Of course, a hairy moment came when a Psycho managed to knock me down from behind, babbling some fragment from Shakespeare (who knew?). As he stood over me, Lilith suddenly appeared, and disintegrated the guy's head with her glowing fist.

Wow. What power. How I'd love to get her on a table. And it seemed that she had been taking Eridium into her body. Dangerous. My kind of dangerous!

I scrambled to my feet, and dispatched another bandit with a precision shot through the medulla oblongata. "R for Reload!(3)" I yelled as I snapped another pistol clip in. Null hypothesis confirmed. Calling your reloads doesn't speed them up. But it does make them awesome.

Suddenly, Lilith sagged to the ground again. Maya, after a quick moment, ran for another Eridium nugget. She got it, and ran back, only for a bandit to trip her and send it flying. Another bandit caught it. I got the feeling he was grinning behind his helmet.

So was I.

I shot the man's hand, calculating how the reflex would jerk the arm around, and hoped that the probabilities were right. The nugget sailed through the air, and skittered along the ground right in front of me.

Null hypothesis confirmed. I am awesome while in the Sci-Zone.

I picked it up, and ran to Lilith, shoving it into her hand. "Please tell me you've got some sort of Limit Break thing."

"…Yeah."

Wow. I didn't know what to be impressed more by: that she knew enough about ancient games, or that she had a Limit Break. "I think now's the time to use it!" The bandits were swarming us now, the Bloodshots making one last desperate attempt to kill us all. They might very well succeed.

Of course, Lilith had something to say about that. Suddenly, all around, the various Psychos and bandits lit up like human torches. Well, not _like_ human torches. They were, with all the screaming and flailing that entails.

Alternative hypothesis confirmed: when it's happening to the deserving, immolation is fucking _awesome_.

* * *

I came out of the Sci-Zone about half a minute later to smell the distinctive smell of a human barbeque. I tottered over to a railing and vomited copiously over the side.

"…That's really weird. It's almost like a Jekyll and Hyde thing," Lilith said, apparently looking on. "But why did he yell those words when you had him in that stasis field?"

"It's a Phaselock, my ability, and that's what Krieg, the Psycho, said to me to try and tell me there were Rats behind me when we met."

I turned to face Lilith, glaring at her. "And you went for me first. I would've thought, of all people, you would've attacked the frigging Psycho first!" I snapped.

"I have bad experience with Hyperion personnel being in close proximity to me," she said unapologetically. "Call it pattern recognition. Besides, you went all psycho on me."

"You hit me first, knocked me into the Sci-Zone. I call that self-inflicted injury." I wiped my mouth.

"Can we focus?" Maya asked. "We came here to find Roland."

"He's not here," Lilith said. "The Bloodshots got him. They're holding him at their base at the dam at Three Horns. Now, uh…"

"Maya." After the Siren introduced herself, the others did so.

As usual, I went last. "Doctor Richard Snyder. Expert on Sirens and Eridium, _ex_-Hyperion, and fucking sore all over," I said pointedly.

"Suck it up," Lilith said without a smidgen of sympathy. "Anyway, look, Roland needs help, and I'll transport you guys to his location. Straight into the Bloodshots' hideout." She grinned. "Ought to scare the shit out of them."

I frowned. I was separated from the group. And then, Lilith began to strobe with purple light, which flared out once more. As the light faded, I heard Salvador yell, "Idiot! You only teleported us a few metres!"

They were right. I was the only one not teleported, but the others were on the other side of the monitors, in a separate part of the cave that made up part of the lair.

"Sorry! I guess my power hasn't gotten back to normal. Head to the Bloodshot's lair! I'll mark it on your ECHOs' maps." She punched a few buttons on her own ECHO.

"But what about Doctor Snyder?" Gaige called out. "Isn't he coming with us?"

"Don't leave me here!" I yelled.

"Oh, quiet," Lilith said. There was irritation in her eyes, but, I hoped, no indication that she wanted to do anything murderous or harmful to me. It wasn't very reassuring.

"Come on, Dick'll be all right," Axton said.

As the others walked away, I heard Maya call out, "Lilith, I want to talk to you about Sirens. But if you harm Doctor Snyder, I will end you."

"Don't worry. I've got something in mind to keep him out of trouble," she said. The scary thing was, she seemed like she meant it. It was nice that Maya did care enough about me to threaten Lilith, though, even though she came to Pandora to meet other Sirens.

The Vault Hunters left, and I was alone with Lilith. "If you're going to kill me," I muttered resignedly, "just get on with it. Hell, you could pick up the bounty from Handsome Jack."

Lilith spat on the ground. "I'd rather die than do anything for his benefit. And I'm not going to kill you. Like I said, I had something in mind to keep you out of trouble. Look, you, along with the others, actually helped me get out of that. Hell, you saved my life by giving me that Eridium. I'll give you that much, so I'll trust you to do something for me."

"And what's that?"

"Tell me, did you have younger siblings?"

"No. Only child."

"Did any babysitting?"

"Nope."

"Well, you're about to."

* * *

"SHIT!"

I ran across the wastes of Tundra Express, having been directed to go there by Fast Travel Station(4) by Lilith. Unfortunately, she neglected to mention that there were varkids, bandits, and some nutter who kept taking potshots at me with a sniper rifle(5).

Most bizarrely of all, so far, I found a bandit habitation that had, of all things, what seemed to be a princess doll, but with a grenade instead of a head. On an impulse, I decided to take it with me, just in case I could use the grenade.

I had been told to seek out a girl called Tiny Tina, who was an acquaintance of the original Vault Hunters. "_She's somewhat eccentric_," Lilith had said. "_But she lost her parents some time ago to Jack's Eridium experiments. You didn't have anything to do with those, did you?_"

"_Not the ones at the Exploitation Preserve. And the few I did do at my lab were some of Jack's security men, if that makes you feel any better. I was in the Sci-Zone._"

"_Yeah. I'd bet. You managed to weaponize being a mad scientist_," she had remarked. "_I'll call on ahead, let her know you're coming_."

I dodged another bullet. The shooter was in a tower roughly in the centre of Tundra Express. I had to get to the base of the hill it was situated on, and move to the other side. Was it me, or was this prick deliberately missing?

"Run, _pendejo_, run!" yelled a voice, slightly slurred. "Hahahaha!"

Yep. Definitely missing on purpose. "_Cabron!_" I yelled back as I continued running. I had learned the rather unflattering Spanish expletive while with Salvador.

"Hey, no need to be rude, man!" slurred the sniper. Another shot dug up a sod of turf.

At last, I spotted the entrance to what had to be Tiny Tina's habitation. Normally, the doors looked thick enough to withstand an explosion. And considering the large bombs dotted around the place, I could see why. I was told to look out for them, partly because they were a landmark, and partly because they had proximity triggers.

I rushed into the doors, and into a cave, where a rather ramshackle home had been set up. I was about to call out for Tina when I saw her. Besides myself, there were only two other people, and I doubted that the Psycho currently tied to a stake with explosives taped to him was Tina. The girl in the ragged dress and trousers, with dirty blonde hair, bulging, dark-rimmed eyes, and a Psycho mask adorning her hair in much the same way as a flower would on others, probably was Tina, on balance of probabilities.

She pranced around the stake with the Psycho tied to it, heading towards a detonator, all while singing, a bit tunelessly, a variation on a really old song…

"All around the stactus plant,

The stalker chased the bandit,

The stalker thought t'was all in good fun,

POP!"

On POP!, she leapt onto the detonator and shoved the handle down. The Psycho disappeared into a fountain of blood and viscera that spattered all over me, and she turned to me, and, sweetly, finished her song.

"…goes the bannn-dit!"

**TINY TINA **

**Enjoys Tea Parties, Pets, and Explosives**

I stared at the scene before me, wiping the blood off my face. _Oh, what the hell had I gotten myself into NOW?_

**CHAPTER 8 ANNOTATIONS:**

**Whew! I don't know how I got this one done so quickly. The lyrics at the start were from ****_Fire_**** by Arthur Brown. I don't own the copyright to that song, or any of the other songs mentioned.**

**Now, in case you're going to complain about how I've characterised Lilith and Mordecai, keep in mind that Roland is perhaps the most moral and honourable of the original Vault Hunters. Lilith was a bit too gleeful that she had discovered pyrokinesis (by making people's faces melt) in an ECHO log in-game, and she doubtless has a shitload of issues with Hyperion because of New Haven. Also, keep in mind her behaviour during the Pre-Sequel, both in the main story (was punching the Vault logo into Jack's face a good idea, especially given what it spurred him to do?) and at the end (not even bothering to listen to her comrades when she's about to kill Athena). Lilith is still a decent person, but she's also understandably paranoid about Hyperion. Plus, I wanted a 'let's you and him fight' scenario between Lilith and Snyder. Because he can tell where she can Phasewalk (that kind of dimensional disturbance must leave some sort of clue as to where she emerges, and Snyder, in the Sci-Zone, is acutely aware of any input that might help him), her advantage is less. But she could probably still kick his arse unless she was nearly out of Eridium power.**

**Once Snyder proves himself by actually helping her in battle, she is still wary of him, but she decides to send him to Tiny Tina, partly as a test to make sure he's worthy of her trust. Lilith thinks that Tina would be a good judge of character, despite her insanity, and if he turns out to be an enemy, Tina would probably kill him (she is, as her character splash states, the world's deadliest 13 year old). As Tiny Tina lost her parents to Eridium experimentation, time will tell whether this backfires. **

**Lilith is a bit nasty, but she's not a bad guy. It's just that Snyder's situation makes her an antagonist, and this will become even more notable once the whole thing about Angel happens. Lilith is not Snyder's friend. I do like her as a character, but there are times when I think she's more than a bit nasty. So, for want of a better term, there will be some Lilith-bashing. Not much: she will be vital to what happens later in the story, and while they won't be friends, they will, hopefully, become allies. But I do intend to point out some flaws, as well as create some conflict between the two. Sorry to any Lilith fans. Like I said, I do like her, but she's also somewhat flawed, and Snyder, unfortunately, pushes her buttons.**

**As for Mordecai, he was called up by Lilith to basically scare the hell out of Snyder, but to also get rid of the worst obstacles in Snyder's way (she doesn't want him dead before finding Tina, after all). So while Mordecai is having fun scaring the crap out of Snyder, he's also helping him by killing the worst of the bandits and other enemies in the way, much like in the game. Snyder doesn't know that. He of course doesn't know about Mordecai's connection to Lilith, either.**

**And now, we have the introduction of Tiny Tina! She's one of my favourite characters in the game, simply because she is so endearingly insane, cute, and yet so damaged that you just want to give her a hug to make her feel better. I gladly did the tea-party preparations, though getting Flesh-Stick in was a pain (by the time I got around to that point, I had already done both ****_Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate Booty_****, and ****_Mr Torgue's Campaign of Carnage_****, so I was over-levelled, and thus, damaged Flesh-Stick a bit too much, nearly killing him before the party started). And yes, that is Princess Fluffybutt that Snyder has found. I spotted it the first time I explored Tundra Express (long before I could meet Tiny Tina), and wondered what the hell a bandit was doing with it.**

**BTW, I've decided to make it a tradition: every time Snyder enters the Sci-Zone, he gets a new character splash. Because I can. :P**

**1\. Seriously, when I had a quick think about what Zer0's battle theme would be, this came to mind. Anyone else have a good idea?**

**2\. If you've watched ****_300_**** or know anything about the Battle of Thermopylae, then you may know what this means. ****_Molon labe_**** is commonly translated to 'come and get them'. The Spartans said this in response to the Persians demanding that they lay down their weapons. It's basically a badass Classical way of saying "Bring it". The Spartans often did this: Alexander the Great's father, Philip II of Macedonia, threatened that if he invaded Laconia (the part of Greece where Sparta resided), he would destroy them utterly. The Spartans merely sent back one word in reply: "If". In other words, ****_if_**** he was actually capable of invading Laconia. Both Philip and Alexander steered clear of Sparta.**

**3\. Considering that Snyder's playing ****_The 13_****_th_****_ Struggle_**** from ****_Kingdom Hearts II_**** while battling the bandits alongside Lilith and the Vault Hunters, it makes sense that he used Xigbar's reloading battlecry. I love the way he says it so much, I wanted to include it in a story. Yes, I am aware that ****_The 13_****_th_****_ Struggle_**** is NOT the battle theme for Xigbar. I don't care. ****_The 13_****_th_****_ Struggle_**** sounds somewhat unhinged, and suits Snyder's unhinged mentality while in the Sci-Zone.**

**4\. Yes, I know you can't travel TO the Fast-Travel station at Tundra Express, AFAIK. For the purpose of this story, you can.**

**5\. Mordecai, as mentioned earlier in these annotations…**


	10. Chapter 9: The Girl of My Dreams

**CHAPTER 9:**

**THE GIRL OF MY DREAMS**

"Wassup, wassup, wassup?" babbled the young teenager in front of me. She acted like she was either drunk, or on some sort of high-end stimulant. Lilith had claimed her to be eccentric, but I could tell that it was something more than that.

"Umm…helium balloons? The lunar satellite? Rakks?" I asked, trying to use humour to defuse the situation. Defuse seemed like the right term, given all the explosives littering the area. Great. I've been tricked into babysitting an explosives obsessive crazier than Ace(1). I wondered how Tina would go up against a Dalek(2). Considering that she captured and blew up a bandit, I guess the odds would be more in her favour than I thought.

She was about to say something further, when she saw what I clutched in my hands. "Princess Fluffybutt!" she yelled. "What did you DO to her?" she asked with venom in her voice and murder in her bulging eyes.

"Nothing! I found her!" I looked at the toy in my hand. A grenade instead of a head. Of course it was the toy of an explosives nut. "A bandit had her, and I was wondering why she was there, and…" I blinked. "Princess Fluffybutt?"

"Gimme! Gimme gimme gimme!" Tina snapped, snatching at the doll. I let her have it. She clung to the doll as if it were…normal, rather than having a potentially lethal explosive core. Then again, I guess her sense of normality was pretty skewed, even more so than the norm on Pandora.

An awkward silence passed, before Tina looked at me. "Lilith called ahead. Called you Doctor Richard Snyder. Expert on Sirens and E-Ri-Di-Um."

I noted how she spoke the syllables of 'Eridium' almost pointedly. "Yes, that's right. I…uh…"

"I don't recognise you. I remember Doc Samuels. She was crying even as she…as she…" Tina gulped. For all of a few seconds, she looked like the child she was, only scared and alone. "She did it anyway. 'Cause Handsome Jack told her to."

So it was true. Doctor Samuels, my mentor, had been involved with human experimentation involving Eridium. "Lilith told me about your parents," I said. "I'm sorry. Doctor Samuels was my teacher. She was a good woman. But…Handsome Jack…he just likes screaming. He's the one who…"

"Shut up!" Tina screamed. Startled, I took a step back. For a moment, Tina's face was twisted in a mask of pure murderous fury, before she eventually said, "Sorry. Don' wanna remember that."

"Okay, well, would you like to hear a story?" I asked, desperate to get the potentially murderous girl away from any thoughts that would end in my demise. "I'm supposed to be a babysitter. How about it?"

Tina blinked, before leading me into to a large room that seemed part workshop, and part bedroom. Explosives components were all over the place, along with some ragged toys. I noted a photograph showing Tina draping her arms along the massive shoulders of Roland. _He must've been a father figure to her after what happened to her parents_, I thought.

She sat down on a rather ratty bed. "Okay, are you sitting comfortably?" I asked. "Then we'll begin…"

* * *

_Once upon a time, there were two childhood friends. One was a boy who had a strange madness within him, a violent demon that nonetheless could create some marvellous things. The other was a girl, a rare and beautiful girl who was unfortunately born a witch. But the boy didn't care. The young witch was the only person, other than his parents, to treat him as other than a ticking time bomb._

_"Oh, wow, was he? Like, with a big ol' tick-tock clock on it?"_

_Ah, please, let me finish._

_"Okay."_

_Anyway, the witch's father was once a good man, his heart as handsome as his face. But his hunger for power gnawed at his heart, until it was a ragged, blackened lump of meat, hidden by his handsomeness. He snatched the witch away, and locked her in a tower. Nobody knew where the witch was, save for the father, and a few others._

_The boy mourned the loss of the witch he loved, not knowing whether she was dead or alive. His parents did all they could to help him in his grief. But soon, they added to his grief. They died of skull-shivers, you see. They had been supervising some Eridium mining, and got poisoned. The boy, who was now a man, unleashed the demon in his grief. He created a cure for skull-shivers, but not one for death, and they couldn't pay the toll._

_"Oh, for a New-U. I see."_

_…Please let me finish._

_Anyway, the man was soon contacted by the witch in the tower. She had grown into a beautiful young woman. But her father, now handsome in name only, didn't want that. Nobody could love his girl but him, even though what he considered love was probably as twisted and mangled as his heart. But he was cunning. He hit upon a plan. The young man was fascinated by witches, and by chance, a new witch had arrived in the land, along with a group of warriors who sought fame, riches, and adventure._

_But the evil man who considered himself handsome wanted them all dead. So he blew up the train they travelled on. But the young man survived, as did the adventurers, and they soon set out across the wastelands seeking revenge…_

* * *

Tina yawned. "Nice story. Not as good as Marcus', though. Imma nap now." And with that, she slumped onto the bed and started snoring.

It was getting dark outside, and I was so bloody tired. I couldn't even remember the last time I got any sleep. Maybe it was back at Liar's Berg, or while we were on the barge Claptrap was sailing. It felt like too bloody long, either way. So I decided to search for the controls to shut the doors for this place. Didn't want any bandits getting in.

"The door controls are over there, dude."

I wheeled to the front door to see a rather ragged figure with goggles, unkempt hair and beard, with a sniper rifle in his hands. And I knew that voice. This was the same sniper who had been harassing me since I entered Tundra Express.

"Oh, what do you want?" I asked in exasperation.

"To make sure Tina's all right, and to clean up any mess you might have left behind," the man slurred. "The name's Mordecai."

**MORDECAI **

**A Bloodwing for a Knave(****3)****.**

"You're the prick who kept shooting at me!" I snarled.

"Yeah, well, I wasn't just shooting at you. Lilith told me to keep you alive. Said you were a bit of a wimp. She also said I could have some fun taking pot-shots at you. Sorry, man."

"Fuck you, fuck your apology, and fuck Lilith," I snarled. "So, what're you gonna do? Kill me?"

"Only if you had hurt Tina," Mordecai said. "Anyway, if I wanted to, I could do that at a distance. I don't wanna face that devil Lilith faced. But I guess if Tina's accepted you, you passed the test."

"Test? You mean Lilith was fucking testing me by sending me to babysit a psychotic teenager?! Get the fuck out of here," I growled.

"Fine. I can tell when I ain't wanted, man. But I've got two things for you. Firstly, don't do anything to Tina, or you'll have me and Lilith to answer to. Roland too, if the Vault Hunters manage to save him. Secondly…" He indicated a bundle next to his feet. "It gets cold here, and Tina doesn't have any spare beds. So, Doctor Hyperion, you get a sleeping bag."

"Doctor Snyder," I corrected him as I warily picked up the bundle. I frowned when I found more than a sleeping bag. I plucked the packages out. "Tea…and crumpets?"

"She loves them," Mordecai said. "See you later, man."

I glared at his back as he left, before finding the door controls and closing them. Exhausted, I unrolled the sleeping bag, squirmed into it, and fell asleep almost instantly.

* * *

I was standing in a vast chamber, a cathedral of technology. All around, the hum of purpose. I saw pipes glowing with the distinctive violet light of Eridium. A distinctive song began playing: _Tsubasa wo Kudasai,_ I realised. _Please Give Me Wings_. A Japanese song, and one of the saddest I knew. It was our song(4).

And there, in the centre, under a dome-like forcefield, like some sort of specimen under glass…was Angel. Scrawny, dressed in clothes that looked almost like cybernetic additions, far too pale, save for the glowing tattoos covering her body, Eridium tubes violating her body, glowing wings spreading from her back. But it was undeniably Angel. Not quite like she appeared in the ECHO transmissions, but it was still her.

She looked up at me, and smiled painfully. "Hi, Ricky."

**ANGEL **

**She's a Bird in a Gilded Cage(****5)**

"Angel?" I looked around. "Where is this place? I mean, I'm dreaming, aren't I? This isn't some psychic bullshit message."

"No, no. Long story short…the Sci-Zone heightens your perceptions, especially when you're asleep. Jack studied it, hoping to find some way to brainwash you. But…I found a way to send you messages. Encoding messages into your ECHO that enter your mind while you're asleep. I sent the program that allows us to talk in my message to you, hoping I could talk to you covertly. But Jack found out. The program I sent you in the message is encoded directly into your brain. It allows us to talk while you're in a dream state. I send you data via ECHO, and your voice speaks program data, like a modem, back. We're actually speaking in machine code now, for want of a better term. But now, you can see me, really see me, as I am now: Jack's prisoner."

"I…sort of gathered that." While I wasn't happy with Angel putting any kind of program into my head without permission, if it allowed us to talk, I was willing to let it slide. I looked around. "What the hell is he doing to you? I mean, being Hyperion's master computer is one thing, but why is he pumping you full of Eridium?"

"The Vault Key," she said quietly. "Sirens exposed to enough Eridium can concentrate the substance. Through me, he can charge the Vault Key within five years rather than two centuries. And the key is almost charged."

"He's after another Vault," I muttered in horror. Of course, I had heard that before. Claptrap had mentioned it, and Jack had said something over ECHO about it. I had heard what happened at the original Vault, though. The creature that lurked within. "Why would he want to repeat that?"

"Not all of the Vaults contain things like the Destroyer," Angel said. "Jack has learned that one of the Vaults contains a Warrior that he can command. An invincible alien super-soldier he can use to oppress Pandora, and remake it in his own image. After that, he will then open Vault after Vault to find the other treasures within. He's interested in the weapons the Eridians left behind."

I stared at her. Eventually, I said, "How can we stop him?"

"Unfortunately, he has measures over me. Even now, he plans to make me destroy Sanctuary. I can't tell you how: he has placed blocks on me. But…I'm tired of being his pawn, Ricky. You, the Vault Hunters both old and new…you are the only people who can stop him…and can stop me."

My eyes widened when the implications hit me. "No…no, I can't lose you again, not after I've just found you! Dammit, Angel, no!"

She smiled, pityingly, but kindly. "You sounded a lot like Jack. Only you actually mean it. You want me to live for anything other than to be a tool. But Ricky…Eridium flows through my veins instead of blood. In order to stop the Vault Key from charging, you have to kill me, and make sure Jack doesn't get his hands on any other Siren, particularly Lilith. Already, she is using Eridium in such a way that she will be useful to Jack. Ricky…you made me happy. The people who I can say that about, they can be counted on one hand."

"Same here," I said. "But…if I lose you again…what have I got left to live for?"

"I don't know. But I want you to live," she said, tears shining in her eyes. "Until next time, Ricky…"

* * *

I woke to the sound of Tiny Tina singing disjointedly to herself while…setting a table? She had set five places at the table, places which had place-cards. Princess Fluffybutt was already present in a seat, with a place-card present. Another place-card declared it to be the reserved spot for 'Lady Tina of Blowupyourfaceheim'. Yet another proclaimed it to be for 'Sir Reginald von Bartlesby'. I was disturbed to find one marked 'Evil bastard who killed my parents', as I wasn't sure that Handsome Jack would deign to come here (not without an entire regiment of bodyguards). I then saw my own. 'Doc'.

Well, I've been called worse, and frankly, 'Doc' was better than 'Dick'. "What're you doing?" I asked Tina.

"Well, Mordecai must've come along and given me crumpets. They're so cruuuuunk!" she said.

I picked up the box of tea from where it was on the table. It was battered, but it looked like imported tea. Thank God for that. Hammerlock's anecdote about Pandoran Tea nearly put me off drinking tea in general for life. "And tea. You like tea?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she said. "What's about you?"

"Yeah," I replied. "As long as it isn't Pandoran Tea."

"Why's that? Oh, is it because it tries to rape you with…"

"Yes, that," I said hurriedly. "So…are you having a tea party? We seem to be missing a few guests."

"I know!" Tina yelled. Not angrily, just yelling for the sheer volume of it. "By the way, do you like chocolate chip cookies?"

"Yep."

"Not raisins?"

"I hate fruit." Which was true enough. Vegetables were another matter.

"Hmm. Imma gonna get 'Real Badasses Eat Chocolate Chip Cookies' tattooed on my back one day. In Old English font(6). Anyway, you're invited to my tea party. But we have a coupla guests missing, as you may have noticed. Imma gonna hafta ask you to help me bring them here."

So, she wanted me to venture out and find the guests to her tea party? She was looking at me with those bulging eyes, pleading with me to do this. And you know what? Fuck it, I was going to do it. I was going to help her have her tea party. Another child robbed of her childhood by Handsome Jack. Well, time to give her some of it back…

**CHAPTER 9 ANNOTATIONS:**

**0_0 Holy shit, I wasn't expecting to finish this one so quickly. This sort of wrote itself. I was originally going to do this mostly about Tiny Tina's tea party, but the Angel scene was too good to make too short. ****In fact, the chapter title refers to Angel, obviously, as they speak while in dreams.**

**Snyder's not in the best of moods with Lilith or Mordecai now. But there's the beginning of a friendship with Tina. He'll come to see her as the sister he never had.**

**BTW, I decided to make Snyder's parents die of skull-shivers relatively recently, and thus the catalyst for his last foray into the Sci-Zone before he was sent to Pandora. Probably buggered up continuity there. I like the fairy-tale version of Snyder's life, though.**

**Angel's warning of things to come. And soon, the truth will out…after tea, of course.**

**1\. A companion of the Seventh Doctor's from ****_Doctor Who_****. Obsessed with explosives and with breathtaking anger management issues. She's still a lot more sane than Tina.**

**2\. Ace beat the crap out of a Dalek with a baseball bat (admittedly enhanced by a Gallifreyan superweapon) in ****_Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks_****. Yes, you heard that right.**

**3\. A reference to the novel ****_A Kestrel for a Knave_****, the basis for the film ****_Kes_****.**

**4\. I heard ****_Tsubasa Wo Kudasai_**** during the climactic scene of ****_Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance_****. The context is rather sad, and I thought it a rather sad song in the version given here (I don't know what it's like in other versions). I thought that this also describes Angel very well, as, despite having wings, she can't fly into the sky, but is trapped in a cage. And, like Shinji with Rei during that scene in the film, Snyder will stop at nothing to save Angel.**

**5\. Another song reference, to the 1900 song ****_A Bird in a Gilded Cage_****.**

**6\. I love this line from _Mr Torgue's Campaign of Carnage_, so I decided to add it here. I would have been just as dismayed as Tina if I realised I was eating raisin cookies.**


	11. Chapter 10: Best Tea Party Ever

**CHAPTER 10:**

**BEST TEA PARTY EVER**

"SHIT!" I screamed as a rather angry varkid, whom Tina had dubbed 'Lady von Bartlesby', divebombed me. I had been sent first to retrieve Sir Reginald from his overbearing mother. Unfortunately, Tina neglected to mention that Sir Reginald von Bartlesby was a baby varkid in a jar, with eyes and moustache affixed to said jar. And Lady von Bartlesby was a massive varkid, now intent on killing me.

The one consolation in this situation was that Mordecai was no longer shooting at me. Instead, he was focusing exclusively on my adversaries. For which I have to be grateful to him for, as there were a lot of them, and thinning them helped. But I still had to deal with many of them, and I was running, weaving, and ducking with monotonous regularity.

Suddenly, the creature sent me sprawling. Sir Reginald's jar went flying, and I skidded along the ground. I found myself sliding into the Sci-Zone again, and decided to just go with it.

Once more, the world became simpler, shaved of its trappings. I scrambled to my feet, and snarled at the varkid. "WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM?! I AM…FOR SCIENCE!"

**DOCTOR RICHARD SNYDER **

**Weaponizing Batshit Crazy Science Since He Was Six!**

The creature made the mistake of landing, and screeching at me. I first shot it between a certain pair of chitinous plates with a flame round. As it screeched in pain, I shot it in the ovipostor. A very unpleasant place to get shot with a flame round (or indeed any kind of bullet), but I was beyond caring. It tried to fly, but a round to one of its wings solved that.

Ribbons of nauseating smoke rose from it. Alternative hypothesis confirmed. Roasted varkid smells like shit. The flame rounds were doing their work: it was almost dead. I wasn't done, though. I reached down, grabbed it by the head, and pulled as hard as I could. And given that I was in the Sci-Zone, hopped up on adrenaline, and angry at this thing for trying to hurt me, I was stronger than usual. It was tough, but eventually, I pulled the dying varkid's head off.

I held it up to the sky, and screamed a half-remembered phrase from an ancient language. "NGADLA!(1)"

I stormed over to Reginald's jar, thankfully intact. And I could hear Mordecai murmuring over ECHO, "_Madre de Dios…_"

Mordecai and Lilith's earlier actions had pissed me off. And Angel's warning and her resignation to death hadn't helped. I was angry. And I was dangerous.

* * *

"One Sir Reginald von Bartlesby, delivered safely," I said, covered in varkid bile and cutting a demonic figure. Speaking of cutting and demons, as I placed Sir Reginald in place, I then presented to Tina a bonus. "And one Lady von Bartlesby's head, delivered unsafely, in somewhat worn condition."

"Dayum, girl, y'didn't need to go that far!" Tina said, her eyes wide. A brief pause later, and a grin lit up her features. "I like you! So, are you the mad genius Doc?"

"Depends. Madness is relative," I said with a broad grin. "Now, don't we have another guest?"

"Oh, snap! Yeah, thass right! The guest of honour isn't here! Flesh-Stick, who's head of a group of bandits nearby. I've been meanin' to do this for some time…do me a flava, and go get him. Or I'll eat your babies."

"I haven't got any, or any inclination to have any," I retorted. "Babies, I mean. Hey, Tina, have you got a sound system? A really loud one?"

"Yeah! I do tap into the local announcement speakers too! Why?"

I grinned even wider. "I think it's Bandit Season, and I want to put the fear of me into them with some sonic warfare." I handed her the music player. "Track 37(2). Hook it up, if you'd please, Lady Tina."

"_Avec plaisir, Monsieur Doc_," she said with a cheeky grin.

* * *

I could see the bandits milling around, looking bored. I'd soon fix that. I could hear the first bars of the song begin, first a heartbeat, and then a combination of orchestra, choir, and rock. And then, the first verses began…

_Soon the colourful birds will cease their song,_

_Soon the winds will whisper only lies,_

_Soon the flowers will close their buds and weep,_

_Soon the moon's cycle fades and dies,_

_Soon the sky will be consumed by the night,_

_Soon the sea will turn to ice…_

I saw them looking around, startled. What the hell was that about, they were wondering? Time for them to find out. It was time for me to make my entrance.

_I am coming now! Hell will be torn open!_

_I am fighting now! Your dreams are gonna freeze!_

They stared at me, incredulously, as I strolled into the camp. Some time ago, some fandubber did a new English version of _Only A Chilling Elegy_, the theme of Frieza from _Dragonball Z Kai_. He was a better singer than he was a wordsmith, so while the lyrics were decent enough, they didn't always fit the music. But the music was awesome. And at the moment, I felt like Frieza, about to visit burning death on the miscreants of the world.

I began firing before they did. Alternative hypothesis confirmed. Loud music is a weapon in of itself. And it works well with the regular kind of weapons. Two bandits died before the others began to fire.

_The buzzing voices of you insects are like drops on the stones,_

_You gradually wear through my patience with your piteous moans,_

_Time to educate you,_

_On your station in life…_

I spotted Flesh-Stick. Tina had some photos of him taken from fairly recently, and there was no mistaking the weird triple-Mohawk this Psycho sported. "Kill him!" he screamed.

**FLESH-STICK **

**Hello. You Killed Tina's Parents. Prepare to Die.**

I dived for cover, before chucking a grenade in the direction of some of the bandits. Then, reloading, I shouted along with the chorus:

_I am the perfect ruler, and you will bow!_

_It's time for my wish to be made!_

_Futile love, it's all very well,_

_But it's nothing but a chilling elegy!_

I laughed hatefully as I used Maya's Maliwan SMG to shoot at explosive barrels, sending bandits flying.

_Look at all you insects grovelling on the ground,_

_All of this flattery won't stop the death of your mound,_

_Your fine words are all very well,_

_But they are hollow to me._

Flesh-Stick raced for me, screaming at me, but I was in the Sci-Zone, and as he leapt into the air, I smashed a fist into his gut, sending him sprawling and gasping. Alternative hypothesis confirmed. Tina was right. He IS a bitch.

As Flesh-Stick writhed, more bandits and marauders appeared, firing. I ducked behind cover again, shoving my finger deep into a pressure point on Flesh-Stick's neck. He grunted and spasmed, before falling unconscious.

I leapt up again, and began firing, shouting along to the chorus again.

_Bow down before me, you worthless bugs!_

_All is inferior to me!_

_Courage, pride and bravery,_

_It's nothing but a cold-hearted elegy!_

A nomad got a clue, and brought out a large shield of metal, some sort of metal door. Thick enough to stop bullets from going through. At least normal bullets. I grinned and slapped the elemental switch to corrosive, and fired at the nomad.

_One day, I will seize immortality for myself,_

_That day will be cause for the lowly worms to celebrate!_

The nomad screamed as the acid eating at his shield began eating at his gloved hand. He dropped it hurriedly. I dropped him with a shot to the head. Null hypothesis confirmed, if ever it needed to be. Headshots are great against enemies.

_I am coming now! Hell will be torn open!_

_I am fighting now! Your dreams are gonna freeze!_

The rest of the bandits were dead or in no condition to fight. Flesh-Stick was mine. Or rather, he was Tina's. I began dragging him back.

_I am coming, freezing you!_

_Soon the colourful birds will cease their song,_

_Soon the winds will whisper only lies,_

_This world, it's great, it is extreme like the Dragonballs!_

The sounds of _Only a Chilling Elegy_ echoed around Tundra Express. I wonder what Mordecai made of it? I wonder what Handsome Jack, if he was watching, made of it? I shouted along with the chorus one last time, even though I wasn't quite home yet.

_I am the perfect ruler, and you will bow!_

_It's time for my wish to be made!_

_Futile love, it's all very well,_

_But it's nothing but a chilling elegy!_

_It's nothing but a chilling elegy!_

* * *

The song had finished long before I finished dragging Flesh-Stick back to Tina's. But once we were there, she shrieked, "Dayum, girl, you wuz AWESOME!" She looked down at Flesh-Stick. "Ummm…he ain't dead, is he?"

"Nope. Well, I don't think so. Pressure points are always so tricky, though." I knelt down next to Flesh-Stick and checked his pulse. Null hypothesis confirmed. He was alive, though given what Tina had in store for him, not for long. He was also covered in scrapes and cuts from me dragging him along the ground, but nothing serious.

I felt the Sci-Zone drain away, complexity and morality leeching back into the world. But I didn't feel pity for Flesh-Stick. I had an idea of why Tina wanted him here. After all, having a place-card marked 'Evil bastard who killed my parents' was a big clue. But I wanted to know exactly why. "What did he do to you and your parents?" I asked, as I helped her seat Flesh-Stick at his chair.

"Sold us to Hyperion," she snarled as she strapped him in. "This bitch watched as we suffered. I got out because my parents…" She choked up a little, before she said, "My parents gave me a grenade. I managed to escape, because they told me to run."

Her voice was now devoid of the energy she usually had, save for a slow, burning undertone of anger and hatred. Her parents sacrificed their very lives to allow their child to escape. And here she was, alive, well, but damaged by her experience.

It was Handsome Jack who gave the orders. But it was this bastard who took them there. I may not be in the Sci-Zone any more, but I wanted to see this guy's end, and know that before he went to Hell or oblivion, that it was as painful as possible.

"Well then, shall we have some tea, Lady Tina?" I asked.

"That we shall, Doc," she said, the light re-entering her eyes, but glittering alongside it was the anticipation for revenge.

* * *

Now, normally, I wouldn't be seen dead at a little girl's mock tea party, let alone a normal one. But for this, I was going to make an exception. With our teacups filled, the doors to her lair closed to prevent unwelcome intruders from entering, and everyone in place, Tina turned to me. "Doc, I think it's time to start. Wake him up with a slap to his bitch-face."

"_Avec plaisir, Mademoiselle Tina,_" I said, before reaching over and slapping Flesh-Stick once, then twice. When he woke up, I hit him again.

"What? You?" he screamed, looking at me.

"I'm not the one you should be worried about, Flesh-Stick," I said, tenting my fingers and raising an eyebrow Lord Vetinari style. "You have been cordially invited, _bitch_, to Lady Tina's tea party. Lady Tina?"

"Indeed, Doc."

"You!" Flesh-Stick snarled, whipping his head around to glare at Tina. "But…you should be dead!"

"So should I," I said. "We're all the walking dead here, Flesh-Stick. Living on borrowed time before we die. But you know what? You are going to go first."

"Over my dead…GAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" Flesh-Stick's ill-advised retort was interrupted as a ridiculous amount of voltage surged into him.

"That's the idea," I said, looking at Tina, who was holding a control for 'Mr Sparks', whose embrace Flesh-Stick was currently enjoying. I pulled out my music player, retrieved from Tina after I brought the bandit back, and selected another track, which played out of the ECHO. Pachelbel's Canon and Gigue in D.

What followed was, admittedly, a surreal and macabre experience. Tina pretended that Fluffybutt and Sir Reginald had anything of value to contribute, and on occasion, asked myself and Flesh-Stick to discuss things. Flesh-Stick alternated between uttering vile threats and pleading for his life, depending on how long it had been since Tina electrocuted him last. I, however, played along.

"…and having actually read _Atlas Shrugged_, it is my considered, objective, and humble opinion that it's a load of shit," I said. "Unfortunately, Handsome Jack takes it as his bible, which is weird, as, despite how repulsive they are, the main characters are saints compared to him."

"No more!" Flesh Stick wailed. "No mooooorrrre! You two are fucking insaaaaane!"

"Why hello there, Mr Pot. I'm Mr Kettle. Were you just telling me how black I am?" I sneered. "You sold her parents into hellish experiments, you broke her mind. And you stink of human offal. I think that's more than enough reason for your fate." I sipped at the tea. Tina knew how to make a damn good cuppa. "So, Tina, what do you reckon? Time for the denouement?"

She nodded, before reaching for the control. Flesh-Stick began to squirm and writhe. "No, please NOOOOO! I'M SORRY I SOLD OUT YOUR FAMILY! I'M…" His last, desperate apology transmuted into a strangled, animalistic scream as the voltage ripped through him. Tina had set it for the highest setting now, and Flesh-Stick convulsed, spasmed, and quivered. Then, the voltage's grip on him ceased, and he slumped forward, his charred skin smoking.

Despite the god-awful smell of the flesh burning, I turned to Tina and smiled. As if reading each other's minds, we said four words quietly, almost solemnly, and definitely simultaneously.

"Best tea party ever."

**CHAPTER 10 ANNOTATIONS:**

**And the tea party has happened! This is one of my favourite sidequests in the game. It's very satisfying to have Flesh-Stick get his comeuppance. While Snyder is a bit queasy at the prospect of killing someone in cold blood (when he's not in the Sci-Zone, anyway), Flesh-Stick's past with Tina means that he cares less. And Tina has grown on Snyder.**

**By the way, I wrote these fandub lyrics for ****_Only a Chilling Elegy_****. I'm a pretty crap songsmith, TBH (and a worse singer), so apologies if it isn't that great. But it's a better fit to the song than the English lyrics I saw on YouTube. I did change some parts, though, making it sound more like Frieza's singing the whole thing rather than it switching back and forth. It's a bloody awesome song, though. Quite frankly, Snyder is pretty scary when he's in the Sci-Zone.**

**Whoa. Three chapters written and updated in about as many days. I can't do it any more at this rate, so I will be taking a break from ****_Hooked on a Feeling_**** for a while. In fact, I'll probably be updating ****_Harry Potter and the Cetra Heritage_**** next, and even that won't be for a while. But I hope you enjoyed these chapters.**

**1\. Supposedly, the victory cry of Shaka Zulu. It means 'I have eaten!' or 'I have conquered!', if I recall correctly.**

**2\. Episode 37 of ****_Dragonball Z Kai_**** is, if I recall correctly, the debut of ****_Only a Chilling Elegy_****, used at the end of the episode when a newly-transformed Frieza attacks and impales Krillin. I also love the dark version of ****_My Favourite Things_**** that Team Four Star's version of Frieza sings in ****_Dragonball Z Abridged_**** before doing the same thing.**


	12. Chapter 11: The Calm Before The Storm

**CHAPTER 11:**

**THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM**

Roland was staring at me after I recited my story. Eventually, he said, "Damn."

I have to confess that out of all the original Vault Hunters I've met so far, I like Roland the most. Lilith had not only sent me to Tina's as a test of character, but had also had Mordecai shoot at me for shits and giggles. Mordecai had shot at me for shits and giggles. At least Lilith had the decency to look shamefaced about it. But when she heard about the tea party…no, The Tea Party (it DESERVES capital letters!), she looked impressed.

"I had Mordecai tape parts of your rampage through Flesh-Stick's gang. He hit the bottle after watching that happen…well, more than usual," she said. "And I have to concur with Roland: _damn_. As for the tea party…wish I'd been there."

"Agreed," Roland said. "Tina is precious to us, and she looks up to me."

"Roland, no offence intended, but you're taller than most. Many people look up to you," I snarked. "But you're right. I saw the photo. Poor Tina…I…I just hope this helps her find some closure. I…I saw a guy being tortured and electrocuted to death, and you know what? Even out of the Sci-Zone, I wish it had been worse. He and Jack destroyed what should have been Tina's life. Jack does that a lot."

Roland nodded. "You're preaching to the choir, Doctor Snyder."

"Yeah, well, it gets worse." Angel's warning about Jack's plot stood out in my mind, so I decided to run with it. "Look, I got wind of a plot. Someone I know back at Hyperion told me Jack is working on a plan to destroy Sanctuary. They couldn't tell me how it's going to happen."

"Really? I didn't know you were speaking to anyone still at Hyperion," Roland said.

"All of us, that is, the other Vault Hunters have been. This person was the one who directed us to Sanctuary, not to mention saying we needed to rescue you."

Roland looked a bit sheepish. Apparently he had been nabbed by the Bloodshots while taking a toilet break behind a rock. Embarrassing to say the least. Then again, even a badass could be surprised while taking a toilet break. I'd heard of ninjas actually killing their targets by hiding in the cesspits under toilets. Gross, but pragmatic.

Lilith frowned. "And who is this Hyperion inside man?"

"Inside woman," I corrected. "Angel."

I really should have seen this coming. Roland's face became hard, and Lilith's face twisted into a mask of anger. "That computer bitch is in contact with you?" she demanded.

"Yes! And with the other Vault Hunters as well!" I retorted. "Without her, we wouldn't have made it to Sanctuary! We would have frozen to death near Liar's Berg, or else been killed by bullymongs!"

"Oh, and that makes up for the lives she destroyed in New Haven? Or deceiving us about the first Vault?"

"Lilith," Roland said quietly, trying to calm things down.

I interjected. "Did it ever occur to you that she may have been forced to do that? Not all of Jack's underlings do his atrocities willingly! I've known her for far longer than any of you! I've known her since we were children!"

Lilith blinked. "…What did you say?"

"You heard! You called her a computer bitch. You think she's an AI. D'you think Jack's atrocities are really so recent? I can't say much more, but I'll tell you one thing: she's more human than Jack." I glared at Lilith. "Or than you. She's my friend, more than any of you!"

Before she could answer, I strode out angrily. "Soldier! SOLDIER!" I heard Roland yell after me.

"I'm not one of your Crimson Raider meatheads, Roland!" I yelled back. "I'm not your soldier!"

* * *

Had I gone too far? I was in danger of alienating probably the best allies I had. Maybe I shouldn't have told them about Angel. Maybe I shouldn't have lost my temper. Lilith I was still pissed off at, given our earlier friction, but Roland…for being a soldier and former mercenary, he was a decent guy.

But the way they spoke of Angel…the Angel I knew wouldn't have done what she did, not willingly. Oh, I knew Jack would have forced her to do it. I had no doubt that Roland and Lilith were telling the truth, they just didn't _know_ the whole truth. They hadn't _known_ Angel like I had.

I didn't walk very far before I plonked myself down on a chair in Dr Tannis' workspace on the ground floor of the Crimson Raiders HQ. "Oh, are you sitting there again?" asked the querulous voice of Dr Tannis.

"Yeah, what of it?" I asked the all-but insane scientist. Her short black hair (currently with a pair of goggles nested in it) and elfin face would have marked her as attractive, but her grasp on sanity was tenuous, at best. And I would prefer a woman who was more sane and endearing.

"Oh, nothing. I'm curious about the effects of Eridium exposure on human buttocks, and that seat has some lining it."

I leapt from the seat almost instantly. "Are you trying to kill me?" I yelled.

"Well, I don't know how lethal it is," she said, absolutely seriously.

**DOCTOR PATRICIA TANNIS **

**Another Dysfunctional and Demented Doctor**

I stared at her, before rubbing my buttocks. Then, I noticed the smirk twitching at her lips. "Oh, nice prank," I groaned.

"It does get boring around here. Plus, I would prefer that other people's buttocks do not make contact with my chairs," she said. She then returned to work on some apparatus or other on a workbench.

I frowned. "What is that, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I do mind, but if it will satisfy your rabid curiosity, I will indulge you." She tapped the box. "In layman's terms, this device can boost the powers a Siren can use, allowing them to use their powers over greater distances. Why, I had that new Siren, Maya, test out an old model an hour ago, and she Phaselocked a bullymong outside the city."

"How could you tell?"

"Because one of the Crimson Raider patrols watched it happen. Unfortunately, the old model exploded. I am sure that that musclebound moron Torgue would have been proud." Tannis examined a piece of circuitry. "Given time, I believe that I could have Lilith Phasewalk to Elpis, or have Maya Phaselock Handsome Jack from Sanctuary. Distance and duration of the powers should be boosted dramatically."

"That's…quite interesting," I said, looking at the apparatus. "And useful. How long until it works, do you reckon?"

"How should I know?" Tannis snapped.

"Hey, I'm just curious. Frankly, I'd pay money to see Jack Phaselocked, swearing up a storm," I said.

"I'd pay for more than that," Lilith said, walking down the stairs from where I had stormed out of their ops room.

"Oh, great," I groaned. "Are you here to flay me with your mind?"

"I'd pay to see that," Tannis said. I didn't know whether she was serious. She probably was.

"Chill. There'll be no flaying unless there has to be," Lilith said. "Doc, come with me."

"Why?"

"Because…I said so? Look, your friends aren't going to take it well if I kill you. I know Maya and Gaige like you. Maybe Zer0, too, though it's hard to tell with that helmet of his. I know you think otherwise, but I'm not an idiot."

_I don't think you're an idiot_, I thought to myself. _I just think you're a blinkered cow who thinks just about everyone remotely associated with Hyperion deserves a slow, painful death_. Unpleasant thoughts, to be sure, but I wasn't in a pleasant mood.

* * *

As we walked through the now twilit streets of Sanctuary, Lilith said, "That wasn't very nice, what you said to Roland."

"I'm sorry. I just don't like military types. And I don't like being called 'soldier'. I'm not a soldier. I'm a scientist at best. At worst, I'm a monster."

"I know that much. But I guess I overreacted when you went to help me. I've spent so much time running from Hyperion, well…" She shrugged.

"I overreacted too," I admitted. "But I saw someone trying to kill me. I think you know how that goes."

"Too well."

Lilith, surprisingly enough, led me to Moxxxi's. Sir Hammerlock had arrived in Sanctuary while I was away dealing with Tiny Tina, and we exchanged brief greetings as he nursed a glass of brandy.

Lilith led me to a dark corner of the bar, and beckoned Moxxi over. "Moxxi, a lager for me, and…what do you have, Doc?"

"Oh, I know what Rick wants," Moxxi purred, before sashaying away sensuously.

"Oh, that's right. Gaige told me before you got back you knew her when she and Jack were an item," Lilith said, frowning. "She said you didn't return her advances partly out of fear of Jack, and partly because you had someone to wait for. Was that Angel?"

I nodded. Eventually, I said, "When I was six, that was the first time I entered the Sci-Zone. I dismembered my stuffed rabbit, Mr Carrot, and turned him into padding for my shoes. My parents saw the whole thing. I was always a precocious child, not actually a genius, but, well, pretty advanced for my years. But this was different. After a few more attacks, they took me to Elpis, to the Hyperion Unusual Conditions Clinic. It was there I was diagnosed with the Sci-Zone. But while we were there, we saw another couple with their daughter, who was getting a check-up. My parents hit it off with her parents, and we went over to their house for dinner. That was Angel."

"What was her condition?"

"That's irrelevant." Well, it wasn't, but I was worried about whether Jack still had any ears around. I didn't want him to redouble his efforts to turn Sanctuary into a smoking crater. "We became friends. Really, she was pretty much my only friend at the time. I became known as a freak at school, and my parents were techies in one of the first Eridium mines, long before the Vault made it more common. They think the Sci-Zone might have been caused by pre-natal exposure to Eridium. The schoolkids thought I was a Psycho in the making. But Angel…she was the only person, other than my parents, to support me, to treat me as anything other than a ticking time bomb. And her father…well, John, as he was known then, was a decent guy, or at least he wore a better mask than he does now."

"I find that hard to believe."

"I can't blame you," I agreed. "But he was, for some time, 'Uncle John'. Gave me presents at Christmas and birthdays, told off-colour jokes…that sort of thing. And Angel…we were inseparable. We read together, played together, hell, we even began speculating about getting married, you know, like kids do. But then, two years later, Angel disappeared. I wasn't told why, and when I asked John why, well, he hit me. For a long time, I thought it was because he was grieving her death, and I was just too nosy to a grieving father. Now…" I sighed. "The truth is, Jack exploited her. He exploited me. He exploits everyone and everything he can. And if he ever captured you, he could exploit you."

"You're meant to be the expert on Sirens, Doc," she said, as Moxxi came over with the drinks. "Why would he want that?"

"If I told you that, Jack will kill us," I said. "Needless to say, it's probably for the best that he doesn't know you're still alive." I had been told by Lilith earlier that Jack had thought her dead, or at least missing, presumed dead. "Anyway, I'm not that much of an expert. It's more like a hobby, an obsession. There's so little known about them, so little research. I guess you're used to people trying to do experiments with you."

"I never get used to it," she said with a sigh. "Most of them don't see me as a human being. Well, a Siren IS something other, but…my parents were human. I feel human…well, most of the time. But others view me as a specimen…or a goddess. I mean, there's a Cult of the Firehawk revolving around me."

I laughed. "You're fucking kidding me! A cult?!"

"Yeah. Gaige and Krieg helped them out while the others were rescuing Roland. For the most part, they seemed to just be doing stupid things to each other, killing themselves with fire. I found it amusing, and disturbing. But all the fun went out when the Cult kidnapped people from Sanctuary, declared them heretics, and tried to burn them. I rescued the Sanctuary citizens, and Gaige and Krieg cleaned up the Cult. Unfortunately, those people I rescued want to worship me."

"Maya was the same way. She was basically a figurehead of the Order of the Impending Storm, used partly to instil fear into the people."

Lilith smirked. "She told me what she did to that bastard who exploited her. If you ask me, a Phaselock and a headshot was too good for him."

"I guess you're right. I read the dossier on her before I met her." I chuckled. "Jack waved her in front of me like bait on a hook. I've been fascinated with Sirens since I was a child, and he knows it."

It was then that I noticed a change come over Lilith. I could all but see the gears turning in her head. Abruptly, she got up from the table, returning with a note pad (presumably used for taking orders in the bar) and a pencil. In a neat, flowing hand, she wrote the following: _Is Angel a Siren?_

I couldn't help it. I gaped. She had guessed, based on odd little bits of information, not incriminating by themselves, and not quite connectable. But she had guessed correctly, and I had, as Zer0 once noted, a shit poker face.

With an almost sardonic lilt (if she had actually been speaking), she wrote, _I'll take that as a yes. It makes sense. That whole 'Executing Phaseshift' thing she said. All Siren abilities have 'Phase' as a prefix. I'll burn this stuff if it'll keep you from feeling paranoid, though. So, write 'y' or 'n' to the following: Jack is basically using her as an organic computer?_

I very nearly wrote 'y', before writing (in my usual untidy scrawl), _And more. She told me that a Siren supercharged with Eridium can be used as a catalyst to produce more of it. Namely, to charge the Vault Key. Jack's using her as basically an Eridium transformer_.

She gaped. It was gratifying to see the same reaction as what happened to me when she surprised me. Eventually, she said, out loud, "I think I'm going to be sick."

"I know," I said.

She wrote, _I can see why Jack would think this worth killing over. And why you reckon he'd be after me. What about Maya?_

_You'd be a priority. You use Eridium to charge your abilities. Maya doesn't. Not that Jack wouldn't want to use Maya anyway, but you'd be a better Plan B if Angel died, or was killed. Does this answer your questions?_

_Yeah._ Out loud, she said, "I guess you're not unlike us, Doc. Viewed with fear, or avarice. People not knowing whether you're a monster or not."

"Oh, I'm a monster all right," I said quietly. "Just the type that can be useful once in a while. D'you want me to go apologise to Roland, now?"

Lilith nodded, taking the notes, and burning them into ashes with her abilities. "And…sorry for beating you around earlier."

"And sorry for all that BS." I sighed. We drained our drinks, and then left. Not quite friends, but certainly better allies than we had been before.

* * *

There was a palpable tension in the air when we got back to the planning room of the Crimson Raiders HQ. Most of the current Vault Hunters were present, with only Salvador and Krieg AWOL.

I went up to Roland, and said, "Look, mate, I'm…I'm sorry about being a shit earlier. I get angry sometimes on a number of subjects. Angel is one of them. I guess she is a touchy subject here too."

Roland's eyes flickered to Lilith. She gave a nod, so he returned his gaze to me. "All right, Doctor. Your apology is accepted. Anyway, we've got important things to do. We need everyone that we can on this."

He then briefed us on new intelligence he had obtained from Mordecai, who was keeping an eye on the trains Hyperion used to transport things. Apparently, Mordecai had caught wind that Jack was intending to transport the Vault Key, and the train would pass through Tundra Express before long. So we were going to blow the tracks and intercept the train.

I raised a hand. "Are we getting Tiny Tina's help on this?"

Roland nodded. "I've saved her life many times before, and she's saved mine a lot more than that. But she's also willing to help. You'll go with the others this time, at least to make sure that Tina knows they're trustworthy."

"Who's Tiny Tina?" Axton asked.

"The world's deadliest 13-year old," I replied with a smirk. "And she throws the best tea parties."

"Tea parties?" Gaige asked. "Like with dolls and stuff?"

"And electric chairs. And explosives. Let's just say that she's nuts, but in an endearing way. I think you two would get along," I said. Then, a nasty thought occurred to me. "Umm, Roland…does Mordecai have any idea how many people are on the train with the Vault Key?"

"No, he didn't say. Why?"

"I've got a bad feeling I know who Jack would send to guard the Vault Key. Tell me, does the name Wilhelm mean anything to you?"

Judging by the reactions on Lilith and Roland's faces, they did. I put my face in my hands and groaned in despair. _Christ_, I thought. _Looks like this is going to be harder than we thought_…

**CHAPTER 11 ANNOTATIONS:**

**A quiet chapter, and one I didn't expect to write so quickly. However, real life has intervened, and I'll probably have to stop writing my fanfics for the next little while. However, once I can, I will get back to writing ****_Hooked on a Feeling_****, as well as ****_Harry Potter and the Cetra Heritage_****.**

**Anyway, I originally had Roland trying to speak alone, but I decided Lilith, trying to make up for her earlier dickish behaviour, would do so. And from there, it lead to the conversation about Angel, and Lilith putting the pieces together. What Snyder confirms for her leads to her rethinking what she thought she knew about Angel. Time will tell whether that will change her attitude towards Angel, though. Also, some brief mentioning of the Cult of the Firehawk, and who dealt with them.**

**So Lilith and Snyder have reconciled a little. They're still wary of each other, and they probably won't be friends any time soon, but I think Lilith appreciates Snyder being frank about his past, and Snyder appreciates Lilith listening. And Snyder, although he has some contempt for the military, doesn't really want to alienate Roland. He just hates being called 'soldier'. His monomania on saving Angel might cause problems, though. But I've sown the seeds of a possible means of saving her…**

**No numbered annotations, though. Sorry. However, I will answer some of the reviews.**

**Darkstar248****: I am willing to believe that Tannis has Asperger's Syndrome, but I am not willing to believe that that is her ****_only_**** mental condition. Autistic spectrum disorders do have plenty of other fun things that can be co-morbid (I am holding up a sarcasm sign, in case you can't tell over the internet). Couple that with her bad experiences on Pandora, and you have a recipe for why she's such a wreck. So she has AS, but she has a lot more problems than just that.**

**You have my sympathies. I do have trouble focusing and with anger management, but not that badly.**

** MrGreen37****: Thanks for your kind words so far. And to address your question regarding chapter 10 and Flesh-Stick's introduction, no. I haven't watched ****_RWBY_****. I have heard of it, but I've never watched it. I actually based it on Inigo Montoya from ****_The Princess Bride_****, who says that he will confront his father's murderer and say "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." If you mean Snyder rampaging into Flesh-Stick's camp to the tune of ****_Only a Chilling Elegy_****, that's more something I've wanted to do in fiction for a while: have someone kick ass while playing a song.**

**Guest: Snyder and Lilith, as shown above, have a heart-to-heart. They're not friends by any means, but they're on better terms. Keep in mind that Snyder is a bit of a dick himself, and while some of his anger is justified, he's also somewhat quick to anger. He tries to recognise this: he is, after all, aware of how welcome Hyperion personnel are to the first generation Vault Hunters. Lilith did do some dickish things (which I think aren't really OOC, given the Pre-Sequel), but she's also had bad experience with both Hyperion personnel and 'experts' on Sirens. The bashing here is relatively mild.**

**Anyway, you'll have to wait some time for new chapters. I already have a rough idea of where it will go: chapter 12 (tentatively titled ****_Badonkadonks_****) has the Vault Hunters meeting Tina for the first time, as well as the prep to attack the train. Chapter 13 (tentatively titled ****_Wilhelm Screams_****) has the actual fight with Wilhelm, along with the beginning of Jack's attack on Sanctuary.**


	13. Chapter 12: Badonkadonks

**CHAPTER 12:**

**BADONKADONKS**

I loved the look on everyone's faces when we finally met Tina. Well, in Zer0's case, his face was hidden by that mask of his, but even if his body language didn't make things clear, the letters **WTF** projected on his helmet would have. I was glad to see that I wasn't the only one who had a bemused reaction to the hyperactive and explosives-obsessed girl. That being said, it seemed like my prediction of Gaige and Tina hitting it off was on the money. If Tina was older, more sane and obsessed with robotics rather than explosives, then she wouldn't be that far off Gaige. Gaige was mostly sane, but there was something off-centre about an eighteen-year old who, after injuring her arm, decides to replace it with a cybernetic limb. That, and being all-too enthusiastic about Deathtrap killing people.

Then again, we weren't exactly normal around here. The most normal of those present was Maya, and she was both a Siren, and rather fond of snide remarks at the enemy's expense.

Tina had removed the body of the late and unlamented Flesh-Stick. When I asked her where she put it, she casually mentioned she was rendering it down to make more explosives(1). Probably the most use that that guy would be in his life.

Even so, I couldn't help but shake the feeling that things were going to go badly wrong. If Jack really was sending the Vault Key on the train, then there was no way in hell that he wouldn't have Wilhelm escorting it, along with as many Loaders and soldiers as he could cram on the train.

* * *

Before we left for Tundra Express, Lilith had me stay behind, and what ensued was a strange three-way conversation using notepads. I was disgruntled to learn that Roland had even neater handwriting than me. Maybe, if he's a soldier, he needs to write clear orders, but I was still miffed. Call me petty and petulant.

The upshot was, both Lilith and Roland now knew about Angel's true nature. It was decided, for the safety of the other Vault Hunters, to keep this under wraps. I was surprised at the amount of sympathy Roland gave me, though not as surprised as I was to get it from Lilith. Learning that the so-called AI she hated was a Siren, and the daughter of Handsome Jack, shook her world somewhat.

Lilith and I exchanged apologies once more, before I set off for Tundra Express with the others. When Maya asked me what they wanted to talk to me about, I shook my head. "Need to know basis. And I'm sorry, but you don't need to know. Let's just say it was intel on Hyperion."

Along the way, we discussed Wilhelm. While Roland and Lilith had the most experience of him of the old Vault Hunters, I had probably known him for longer.

"I'll be blunt," I said. "I have met precisely three people who I know for sure can stop me during a Sci-Zone rampage, in a one-on-one battle. Two of them are Sirens. Obviously, that means Maya and Lilith. Boom got lucky, but everyone does. But I mean with me in full-on mad scientist slash precision killer mode, against someone. And Maya and Lilith have the advantage because of their abilities."

"I'm right here, you know," Maya said, her eyebrow cocked in mock annoyance.

"Sorry. Just making a point. Your Phaselock means that I'm completely vulnerable, and Lilith's Phasewalking and energy punches can go right through a shield grenade. In fact, I'd bet that if it weren't for the shield, I would be missing my head. Now, Wilhelm can restrain me and sedate me, all while I'm struggling beneath him."

Axton waggled his eyebrows. "Kinky."

"Christ almighty in a galvanized steel bucket, is everything a double entendre to you?"

"Double what?"

"JAUNDICE-SACK SAYS SENTRY-HUMPER LOVES MAKING SEX JOKES!" Krieg bellowed in one of his more coherent outbursts.

"…What he said," I muttered, indicating Krieg. "Thanks, Krieg."

"MY HEART PUMPS DARKNESS AND APPRECIATION!" the Psycho howled. "AND FIRE!"

"…Remind me to play some Arthur Brown for you," I remarked. "You'd like to sing along. Anyway, Wilhelm is a cyborg. The last time I saw him, which was about a few months ago, he was basically half-man, and half-loader. You might think this is awesome. It may be, unless you're on the wrong end of him. And do you remember those ECHO logs Hammerlock had me looking all over Liar's Berg for? He murdered a whole train-load of people."

"Lilith said that he worked for Jack as a Vault Hunter on Elpis," Maya said thoughtfully.

"There was a whole bunch of them. I met a couple, besides from Wilhelm. There was Nisha something or other, I think she's the Sheriff of Lynchwood now, and then there was a Claptrap unit…hell, even one of Jack's body doubles. Nice guy, actually. Shame he had to look like Jack. I knew him from college, actually. Timothy Lawrence. Got surgery and voice altering software to pay off his student loans. Probably got killed by some assassin, or maybe Jack himself. Anyway, my point is, Wilhelm is fucking scary."

"I'm surprised that you can't Sci-Zone him."

I chuckled bleakly at Gaige's comment. "The Sci-Zone just enhances my perceptions ridiculously. I know enough anatomy and physiology so that I can determine the weak points of a human body instinctively while in the Sci-Zone. Wilhelm's a cyborg. I am not an engineer, so it's harder for me to discern the weak points. Oh, I can see some, but mechanical weak points are much harder for me. That's part of the reason Jack sends him in after me when I'm in the Sci-Zone. He can actually stop me without killing me. Though I wouldn't be surprised if he wants to. Guy's a killing machine."

* * *

It was on that note that I left the subject of Wilhelm up in the air, and in time for us to get to Tiny Tina. After we met and got to know each other, she discussed her plan: to destroy the rails with explosives and derail the train.

Of course, things were never that simple. She needed 'badonkadonks' for her would-be kamikaze stuffed rabbit toys, Mushy Snugglebites and Felicia Sexopants. She called them her 'damsels'. Said badonkadonks had been stolen by bandits earlier.

Now, I had long since given up what was going through Tiny Tina's brain when she came up with names like that. Or where she heard about such things. But I've lived a fairly sheltered life compared to some of these people. Here on Pandora, sex education, in the best case scenario, probably involves trashy media and Psychos' insane ramblings (I heard one scream once, as a crazed battle cry, "SEEEEMENNNN!"). In the worst case scenario…well, I sincerely hoped Tina had never been exposed to _that_.

I was teamed up with Krieg and Gaige to fetch one badonkadonk, while the others went to find another. I sighed. I wasn't looking forward to combat again. There was no guarantee that the Sci-Zone would help me.

And then, a certain douchebag decided to make himself known as we trudged along the Tundra Express landscape.

"_Heeyyy, buddy, how's it going?_" Handsome Jack's voice rang out over the ECHO system, specifically calling me.

"Fine enough until you called," I remarked wearily.

"_Well, what can I say? I enjoy playing with my Dick._"

"You enjoy doing that way too much," I sneered. "Is your daughter listening?

"_…You'll regret that remark. Here's a little bit of news for you, Dick, since you seem to forget who you're talking to. Remember Dave the Douchebag(__2)__? Your old gaming partner and one of my weapons designers?_"

I knew what he was going to say. I felt a chill run down my spine. And was that pained whimpering I heard in the background? Very _familiar_ pained whimpering?

"_Well, I was a bit miffed that he let you take a few prototype shield grenades out into the field, but I figured, no biggie, there was no guarantee they would work, and even if they do, you only have a few. So imagine my surprise this morning when I found that that fat bastard Marcus Kincaid was selling them, and paying the usual licencing fees, that sort of thing, to Hyperion's coffers. Not that I object to getting my proper cut of money, but I don't like bandits getting their hands on anything I don't want them to. I'll deal with you in time, but I thought I'd give you a taster. Dave here was the one stupid enough to give you the shield grenades, and while having talent is all very well, I value loyalty somewhat more._" Suddenly, a shot rang out, and Dave's voice screamed. I even heard a distinctive sizzling noise.

"_Corrosive rounds from a Maliwan_," Jack said. "_Very painful when you don't hit a vital area._" Another shot, and another series of screams and sobs from Dave.

"Stop this!" I screamed into the ECHO device. "He has done nothing to you!"

"_True. But I need to make a point. I fuck with my Dick. My Dick does not get to fuck me back. Now, Dave, buddy, pal, have you got any last words to say to Dick?_"

I heard moaning, and then Dave's voice saying, "…_Richard…why did you have to piss him off?_"

"_Ooh, those are good ones!_" Jack said. Then, a gunshot. The sound of a body slumping. And then, silence. Spoiled only by Jack speaking again. "_Shame your parents are dead, or I'd do the same to them._"

Something inside me clicked. I said, quietly, "You just did the wrong thing."

Jack laughed. "_Wrong? Wrong?! How can I have done the wrong thing?! I'm the hero of this little story, no matter what you think!_" he sneered.

"No. You're not."

"_And what, you are?! Don't make me laugh, Dick!_"

"I never said I was a hero. But I think I may still be a protagonist. And I will tell you one thing that I will guarantee. As long as there is breath in my lungs and blood pumping through my veins, there is one person, come Hell or high-water, I will take from your grasp, and protect her from you and anyone else until I die."

There was a pause, before he said, in a low growl, "_I won't let you take my daughter away._"

"One day, we're eloping. _Datte_-fucking-_bayo_, bitch(3)." And with that, I punched the comms button.

* * *

Dave's last words haunted me. Maybe I was asking for too much for him to say something defiant to Jack like '_screw you!_' or '_I'll never betray my friend_'. Or maybe something reassuring like 'it's not your fault'. He was being tortured by being shot non-fatally with corrosive rounds. I saw the effect they had on the bandits and marauders, and had no desire to experience it for myself.

Jack got a share of profit from Marcus selling these things. But he didn't care. Whatever twisted principles he had directed him to punish me. And he did so by torturing and murdering one of my few friends from Hyperion.

Friends…I didn't really have that many. I could probably count the ones I had in Hyperion on one hand. My condition tended to scare people away, and Dave was more of a guy who I had bonded with over playing old video games. But he could be considered a friend, and one who was now dead, thanks to the spite of Handsome Jack.

My threat hadn't been idle. I fully intended to find a way to get Angel out of his clutches, and alive. I didn't care about Angel's desire to die: I convinced myself (or deluded myself?) into thinking that once she was alive, and free from the pain of Jack's incarceration, she would regain the will to live. I even believed she would thank me. Or at least wouldn't hate me.

We soon found (after some battles) the badonkadonk, which turned out to be a missile more than capable of turning an entire building into rubble. It was the muscular Krieg who shouldered it, carefully, and began carrying it back.

We got back before the others, with Tina promptly getting to work in her workshop to start work on it. She closed the door, but I could hear her singing, "_Put a little bomb in the hot-ass damsel, blow stuff up and make people die…_" Then, suddenly, a rather wet, meaty noise came from within. "Squishy. Squishy squishy squishy."

What the fuck was she doing in there?

Not long after she finished and opened the shutter to her workshop again, did Maya and the others bring back their badonkadonk. Tina took it off them, and vanished into her workshop again. This time, she sang, "_I'm a little teapot, bloody and cut. Here is my handle, and here is my butt…_" I heard a brief explosion, and as smoke curled out from underneath the door, I heard Tina say, "Whoops."

"Tina?" I asked. "Is everything all right in there, or should we start fleeing for the hills?"

"No, no, it's super!" I exchanged a look with the others. They did look somewhat apprehensive, save for Krieg, who looked excited.

"GONNA MAKE BOOM-BOOM!" he roared.

"…Didn't we already kill that guy?" Maya asked.

"And he wants to make another one?" Gaige asked.

"Boom-Bewm were small shits,

Not really men at all, yes?

Now they are rakk-shit.(4)"

"Hey, Zer0," I asked, once the enigmatic warrior said his piece. "If I die, would you mind giving me a haiku epitaph? Preferably one a little more flattering?"

"Perhaps," Zer0 said. There was a winking smiley projected on his helmet.

Tina chose that moment to open up her workshop and reveal her handiwork: the two rabbit toys were now strapped to the missiles.

* * *

It felt so long ago since I got on that train, met the Vault Hunters, and got screwed over by Jack-off. But if you told me then that one of the highlights of that time was setting off a pair of kamikaze stuffed rabbits in order to hijack the train, I probably would have died laughing. No, seriously. I think I would have died of a heart attack or anoxia from the laughing.

And yet, here I was, poking the bellies of the two bunnies to activate Tina's remote transmitters. I stepped back to avoid the backlash from the rockets.

On cue, the sound of a train horn sounded, and Tina began counting down, only to fire off the rockets after reaching 9 because, and I am quoting her verbatim here, "_I got bored._"

She enjoyed the derailing of the train just a little too much, I thought. She howled something about 'burning all the babies', which sounded deranged even by her standards, or even by myself in the Sci-Zone. Train cars crashed, conveniently leaving us wreckage which we could climb up to where the main security car was in the wrecked train, deep in a frosted-over canyon…

* * *

"I've got a bad feeling about this," I muttered as Salvador shot the last loader.

"What do you mean? We kick ass!" Axton said.

"All we've come across are maybe half a dozen loaders. If the Vault Key is really here, then Jack-off would have sent hundreds. AND he would have had Wilhelm with it."

"So our intel was a bit wonky," Axton said. "It's no biggy. Anyway, this Wilhelm might be tough for you to beat, Dick, but he hasn't met me."

We had been approaching a wrecked security car when it suddenly all but exploded. And when I saw the large figure emerging, I groaned. "You and your big, fucking mouth!" I snarled at Axton.

It was a hideous hybrid of Loader and man. What had once been a grizzled, if relatively normal mercenary, was now all but subsumed in the frame of a Loader and exo-skeleton. It was big, intimidating, and Hyperion yellow.

And he was towering over all of us, like a deity of the new age of cold, merciless metal.

**WILHELM **

**Scream for me, bitches!**

_This is it_, I thought to myself. _We are going to fucking die_…

**CHAPTER 12 ANNOTATIONS**

**Finally, another chapter. This may be the last one for a while, though. I want to concentrate a little more on ****_Harry Potter and the Cetra Heritage_****, get the first 'book', so to speak, finished.**

**I've also decided to end this particular fanfic after the events of the mission ****_Where Angels Fear To Tread_****. That being said, I intend to start a sequel set in Oasis and the surrounding areas, and thus dealing with the events of ****_Captain Scarlett and her Pirate's Booty_****. The tentative title is ****_Somebody to Love_****, in keeping with the song theme for the title of this fanfic, and the song was used in ****_Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_****. Considering that Shade is a somewhat more deranged version of Raoul Duke, I thought it appropriate. It will involve Snyder and a few of the characters hiding from Jack in Oasis, only to get caught up in the whole mess with Captain Scarlett.**

**As for Dave getting killed, I'd actually planned this for some time, not long after I wrote the second chapter. It was why I wrote the scene involving Marcus some chapters back. Snyder, through an albeit understandable lack of foresight, got one of his few friends murdered. And I also deliberately wrote Dave's last words to be maybe a touch more realistic. Poor Dave was just a corporate drone who liked making weapons and playing video games, he was a nice guy who didn't want to die. And Jack, because he's an utter bastard, kills him in a nasty fashion just to hurt Snyder.**

**I actually realised while writing the last scene of this chapter that I've been writing Axton basically as Jim from ****_Darths and Droids_****. If you don't know about that, go and read it. It's a brilliant and utterly hilarious satire of ****_Star Wars_****, done as if the entire movie series was a tabletop roleplaying game, created partly by the GM, and mostly from the deranged or hasty imaginings of the players. Jim is the sort of player who shoots first, and roleplays later, making all sorts of overcomplicated and deranged plans. He plays Qui-Gonn Jinn, Padme Amidala, and Han Solo throughout the webcomic. It's currently starting the equivalent of ****_Return of the Jedi_**** as of writing this, having already done the prequels and two of the original trilogy. The reason why I realised Axton was basically Jim on Pandora was that I wrote Snyder saying a similar line to Ben (who played Obi-Wan and Chewbacca in ****_Darths and Droids_****) about being suspicious of how easy it's going, and Axton saying that they just kick ass.**

**EDIT: Darkstar248 has just asked a pertinent question in his review of this chapter: why does Krieg call Snyder 'jaundice-sack'? Well, I will explain. Jaundice is a medical condition where the skin and sclera (or whites of the eyes) turn yellow. It's usually associated with liver disease. What does this have to do with Snyder? Well, cowards are often called 'yellow' or 'yellow-bellied' or things along those lines. So 'jaundice-sack' is Krieg-speak for 'coward'. By this chapter, it has become (by Krieg's standards) a sort of affectionate nickname. Snyder still doesn't like it, but he keeps his mouth shut. Better to remain on the good side of the homicidal psychopath with the hair-trigger temper.**

**1\. I remember reading somewhere that, during the First World War, the Germans rendered down horse carcasses to make explosives with. But when reported in the British media, either a mistranslation or just thinking the worst of the Germans (or both!) meant that the British public were horrified at the thought that the Germans were rendering down ****_human_**** carcasses. I don't know whether this is actually possible with a human body, but it was in-character with Tina, so I decided to run with the idea that it was.**

**2\. 'Dave the Douchebag' is actually my nickname for the Dave who was in Overlook. You know, the one who keeps insulting you and Karima, and who disconnected the battery from the medicine machine so that he could watch the town clock? Of course, the Dave in this story, the one who Snyder knows, is not that Dave. It doesn't stop Jack from using that appellation.**

**3\. Okay, couldn't resist both a ****_Naruto_**** reference, or rather, a reference to episode 6 of LittleKuriboh's ****_Naruto: The Abridged Comedy Fandub Spoof Series Show_****, or as I like to call it, ****_Naruto Abridged Abridged_****.**

**4\. A reference to Alucard's line from ****_Hellsing_**** when killing Luke Valentine. It went something along the lines of "You were more a piece of shit than a man. Now you're dog shit."**


	14. Chapter 13: Wilhelm Screaming

**CHAPTER 13:**

**WILHELM SCREAMING**

"RUN!" I yelled, diving for cover behind some debris. Some of the Vault Hunters took my advice. I noticed that even as they did so, Axton and Gaige unleashed their respective digistructed weapons.

"Fuck! Shit! Piss! Fuck!" I screamed as Wilhelm began unleashing missiles at us. In fact, I noticed that he was targeting me. And me alone.

"_Come out of hiding, Snyder!_" Wilhelm roared in his electronically warped voice. "_Jack said I could finally kill your sorry ass! No more trying to sedate you! You don't know how frustrating that was!_"

"Good!" I screamed back. I began running from cover to cover, ducking and weaving. As I did so, I wondered why Wilhelm was concentrating on me. Why not the Vault Hunters?

"Richard! He's sending Loaders after us!" Maya called.

"_That's right!_" Wilhelm screamed. "_Jack told me to kill all of you, but especially you, Snyder!_" Another volley of missiles from a launcher mounted on Wilhelm sent me scrambling out of hiding. "_I won't rest until you're dead! I'll pick off your bandit friends later!_"

"_Snyder!_" Lilith yelled over an ECHO connection. "_Get out of there. Roland's contacting the others! Wilhelm nearly killed us all at New Haven without breaking a sweat!_"

"I know!" I screamed into the ECHO as I dived between two wrecked train cars. "Jack sent this bastard to subdue me when I was in the middle of a Sci-Zone attack. Now he has orders to kill me! I'm FUCKED!"

"_Doctor Snyder, come out, come out, wherever you are!_" Wilhelm all but crooned.

I blinked as I processed these words. Now, Wilhelm was a bloodthirsty psychopath. But he was generally laconic in his speech, sparing with his words. Blunt, to the point. To have him do this…was there something even more wrong with him than usual?

It was strange, though. I could feel the Sci-Zone pounding away at my barriers, demanding to be let in, and yet, I couldn't do it. What was going on?

Suddenly, one of the train cars was ripped away, and Wilhelm bellowed, triumphantly, "_There you are!_" He then grabbed me in one of his massive claws, and raised me up into the air. God, everyone else was busy fighting the Loaders. I was going to die.

Wilhelm leered at me. "_Jack developed a chemical to suppress the Sci-Zone. Didn't always work, because he didn't want to risk higher doses killing you. But he built a disperser into my body. Got any last words, maggot?_"

Suddenly, the impossible happened. Wilhelm's head, almost spontaneously, seemed to fly off, propelled on a spray of blood that spattered me. I blinked when I saw that there were two Zer0s. One who seemed to be evading the Loaders that the others were fighting, and another who was now just landing on the snow-strewn ground, his sword dripping with blood.

"A most deadly man,

Inspiring fear in others,

He fell easily."

"You call that easily?" I demanded incredulously. Wilhelm still gripped me in his claw, even in death. I looked over at the Loaders, only to find that the other Zer0 had vanished. "How did you manage that?"

"My skill, Decepti0n,

A hologram distracts foes

While I hunt, unseen.(1)"

Zer0 leapt up onto the arm of Wilhelm, and began hacking away at the claws, his apparently reckless swings actually quite precise. Eventually, the claw was damaged enough to release me, and let me drop to the ground, bruising my dignity and my posterior in the process.

"That's like, what, two-nil at least?" I asked Zer0.

"Who's keeping score?

I certainly am not, Doc,

I live for the kill."

A smiley appeared projected on his helmet, just a simple one: **:)**. I nodded, and got to my feet. "Thanks all the same. My ribs and cardiovascular system thanks you for your help."

The smiley was replaced by **LOL**. But then, Zer0 then turned to Wilhelm, and peered at the cyborg's corpse. "Too easy," he murmured, the most amount of words I heard him speak outside of a haiku. He didn't sound elated. He sounded disappointed. And suspicious.

And it was, wasn't it? Wilhelm was the monster who tore down New Haven, who massacred a trainload of refugees heading for Sanctuary, and who was the only person capable of subduing me while I was in the Sci-Zone.

Wilhelm being more wordy than usual, him dying so easily to Zer0's blade…not that I was denigrating Zer0's skill, but if the man (or whatever he was) himself was thinking it was too easy, then who was I to disagree?

"_You managed to kill Wilhelm?_" Lilith asked over ECHO. I could hear disbelief tingeing her tone.

"I didn't," I said. "Zer0 deserves the credit." I frowned, and went over to Wilhelm's head, where it lay on the ground, congealing in a pool of its own vile blood. I didn't need to be in the Sci-Zone to know that something didn't look right. "Zer0, do you have a large bag or something?"

The assassin nodded, and handed me a large, plastic bag. God knows where he got it from, or where he kept it. "Why?"

"It was too easy," I said, frowning as I put Wilhelm's head into the bag. "Maybe Dr Tannis can help me find out what. And maybe you can have a trophy, if you want."

"Heads are not my thing,

I live only for the kill,

And to test my skill."

"Okay, sorry."

"Hey!" intruded an unwelcome voice, that of Axton, who was holding something he found nearby. "Look at this! A power core! Pretty snazzy-looking one too!"

"Great," I said absentmindedly. "Maybe they could use that at Sanctuary."

* * *

We began the trek back to Sanctuary, or at least to the Tundra Express Fast-Travel station. Axton and Salvador jeered at me for considering Wilhelm to be much of a threat. Krieg…he seemed more content to shout barely-coherent sentences, none of which seemed to refer to me, given that he didn't say 'jaundice-sack'. The others, being Zer0, Maya, and Gaige, were more contemplative.

And me? I scowled at Axton and Salvador, but made the trek back in sullen silence. Axton bragged about his power core find to Roland and Lilith over ECHO, and it was decided to give it a shot.

We used the Fast-Travel Station to get to Sanctuary. My destination was Tannis's lab, while Axton and Salvador were going to bring the power core to Lieutenant Davis. Once I got there, I dumped the bag containing Wilhelm's head on the bench. "Doctor Tannis, a present for you."

"Oh, good, I so love presents," she said, though her voice made it hard to tell whether she was being sarcastic. To her credit, she merely looked slightly nonplussed at Wilhelm's head. She then sniffed it. "Siralanomode(2)?"

I felt a chill run down my spine. Quietly, I asked, "What?"

"What's siralanomode?" Maya asked. She, Gaige, and Zer0 had accompanied me to Tannis' lab.

"An anaesthetic, banned long ago," I explained. "Affects memory, gives a strong sense of euphoria and dissociation. It's now a drug of abuse, like ketamine or PCP." I whirled to stare at the others. "And I know Wilhelm enough to know that this isn't something he'd have taken. It interacts badly with cybernetic modifications. That's how we were able to beat the bastard, he was high!"

With that, I dashed up the stairs. "Roland!" I yelled. "ROLAND!"

He was in discussion with Lilith when I got in. "Where's the fire, Doc?" he asked.

"Here, if we don't stop them!" I yelled. "Wilhelm went down easily because Jack slipped him siralanomode!"

Lilith's eyes widened. She clearly knew something about what I meant. "Shit. Roland, call Davis. Now! Tell him to avoid putting that new power core in! It may be a trap!"

Roland nodded. He then activated his ECHO. "Davis! Come in! Whatever you do, do _not_ install the…"

"_Too late_," came a most unwelcome voice. The voice of Handsome Jack. "_Angel? You know what to do._"

"Angel!" I yelled. "Don't do it! For God's sake, don't do it!"

Then, her voice from the ECHO. Angel's voice. Filled with pain. Pain I knew inflicted by Handsome Jack. Laboured and heavy. "_Sorry…Ricky…_" Then, in a dull, almost mechanical tone, she said, "_Executing Phase-shift. Lowering Sanctuary's shields._"

"No, stop! Angel! ANGEL!" I screamed.

Suddenly, alarms went off. Roland went over to a control panel. "SHIT! The shields are down!"

"ANGEL!" I screamed, stupidly.

"_She can't hear you anymore, Dick!_" Jack's voice sneered from the ECHO. "_She'll never hear you ever again! Because this time, I'm putting you down for good, and I will make sure you're joined by every last bandit scumbag in Sanctuary!_" Then, he cut off the connection.

Roland looked at Lilith, who nodded, and disappeared in a flare of violet light. "Where'd she go?!" I demanded.

Roland ignored me, and as the sound of what had to be moonshots beginning to strike the city sounded, he yelled into his ECHO, "Scooter, we need to implement the emergency exit strategy! Now! Or we're dead!"

"_You bet, Roland!_" Scooter yelled back.

"What are we going to do?" I demanded.

"What we need to do to survive," Roland said, glowering at me. No, not actually glowering at me. His fury was directed at Handsome Jack. And Angel, I knew. "Come on!"

* * *

He led me to a storeroom in the Crimson Raiders HQ that I had never been in. "Private stash of Eridium," he explained. "One of the biggest stockpiles outside of Crazy Earl's."

"So how does Lilith figure into it? I think I know why you called Scooter, because this was built on an old Dahl spaceship or something. But why Lilith?"

"With enough Eridium, she might be able to phase this city away from here. Then, we are mobile," Roland explained impatiently, as he shovelled nuggets of Eridium into a bag.

I opened other lockers, and plucked more Eridium from the lockers. "You're pinning a lot on hypotheticals, Roland!" I snapped. "What if the Eridium isn't enough?"

"You're meant to be the expert, Doctor Snyder, you tell me!"

Suddenly, a moonshot hit the HQ, and part of the ceiling collapsed. I dived out of the way, but Roland wasn't so lucky. I heard a scream of pain and a sickening crunch. When the dust cleared, Roland's legs were pinned underneath the rubble. The bag had spilled some of the nuggets.

"Forget about me!" Roland yelled. "Get those nuggets, and take them to Lilith, now!"

I gathered the nuggets up and swept them into the bag. "You may die if I leave you," I said, panicking.

"We'll ALL die if you don't!" snarled Roland.

Any further debate was cut off when Maya, looking harassed and harried, rushed in. "Roland?! Snyder?"

I grabbed the bag and shoved it into her hands. "Get this to Lilith, _now!_"

Maya, her eyes wide, nodded, and rushed out the door. Then, lent strength by epinephrine, and with a hoarse scream of effort, I began to lift the lump of concrete off Roland. Not by much, but it was enough. With a wince of pain, he managed to pull himself out from beneath it. I let it drop, and then began dragging him out of the room.

"Where are you taking me?" he demanded.

"Dr Zed's, or at least to somewhere more sheltered so that I can get something. You're heavier than that lump of concrete, you know that?"

"Doctor, there's medkits downstairs. Get me one. That'll do for the time being!"

"Fuck that, I'm making sure you're safe first!"

Over his protests, I managed to get him downstairs. I then found a medkit, just in time to witness a flare of violet light from the door, and the direction of Sanctuary's main square. Well, more of a round, but in circumstances like this, I'm not going to be pedantic.

And then, I heard Lilith yell at Scooter, saying that we needed to get going now. Scooter chuckled, and said, "_Well, looks like it's gonna be one of them moments. CATCH A RIIIIIIDE!_"

I felt the city rock beneath my feet, not from the moonshots (though they were causing plenty of rocking), but from something deeper. And unlike last time, it sustained itself, became smoother.

"_Roland_," Lilith's voice came from his ECHO, "_there was a flare-up with my powers when Maya gave me the Eridium. The Vault Hunters got caught up in it, and they're on the outskirts of Sanctuary._"

"We'll have to hope they can get back here," Roland said, wincing as I administered a shot. "Scooter?"

"_We're a-flying, Roland! Now let's make like a tree, and git the hell outta here(__3)__!_"

Suddenly, Jack's voice broke in. "_Oh, really, that's your secret weapon? A flying city? Ten points for spectacle, but minus several million for good thinking. I can hit you with a moonshot even when you're in the air. What do you guys have that makes you think you can win?_"

"The same thing you have, Jack. A Siren hyped up on Eridium," Roland bit out.

"'Sup," Lilith bit out over the same connection.

And as everything seemed to disappear in a purple haze, I heard Jack mutter, at an almost complete loss for words, "_Huh_."

* * *

It seemed like an eternity before the purple haze cleared, and everything went back, more or less, to normal. Eventually, Lilith ran in, her tattoos still glowing. "Roland?!" she yelped, upon seeing him there, his legs crushed.

"He needs to see Dr Zed," I said. "Are we safe?"

"For the moment." As she helped Roland into a stretcher, along with Dr Tannis, she gave me a look. "We'll talk later."

Tannis helped Lilith take Roland on a stretcher out. Numbly, I got to my feet, and staggered out after them. I stared at the square of Sanctuary, now pocked with craters from the moonshots. Bits of dead body everywhere. Injured people being helped.

As I staggered in the direction of Moxxxi's, believing that now was a good time to start drinking, I felt the burn of accusing stares on me. Hyperion had nearly killed them all. And I still wore that damned suit with the logo emblazoned on the pocket.

The inevitable happened. Something hit me in the back of the head. A white explosion filled my skull, and I was unconscious before I even hit the ground…

**CHAPTER 13 ANNOTATIONS:**

**Sorry for the long absence, guys. I wanted to get ****_Harry Potter and the Cetra Heritage_**** and its interquel finished, and I got sidetracked by other stories. So, apologies. Plus, I wanted to watch a YouTube video of the Wilhelm fight to get a better sense of it, as I killed Wilhelm pretty quickly in my playthrough. Comes from having actually played two of the DLC campaigns (****_Captain Scarlett_**** and ****_Campaign of Carnage_****) before I even met Tiny Tina. I decided to make it a bit more frightening for Snyder, as well as add signs of Wilhelm's poisoning. It was still, I think, about as anticlimactic as the fight was in my playthrough.**

**I thought my writing of the bombing of Sanctuary was pretty good too.**

**1\. This is presumably the first time Zer0 uses Decepti0n near Snyder, or at least the first time Snyder notices it.**

**2\. Siralanomode is named for an anaesthetic used on the Second Doctor in ****_Doctor Who: The Two Doctors_****. The Second Doctor identifies the class of drug from how it feels when he is waking up, and when he learns what it is, he protests that it affects the memory.**

**3\. While Scooter isn't anywhere near as mean-spirited as Biff Tannen, something appealed to me having him say Biff's line from the ****_Back to the Future_**** films.**


	15. Chapter 14: Fatalism and Determination

**CHAPTER 14:**

**FATALISM AND DETERMINATION**

Once more, I was standing in Angel's chamber. But I wasn't alone. I could see Jack there, pointing his finger at her. "…and that's the last of it, Angel! You have only one purpose: to do your daddy proud! You're here for nobody else, you got that?!"

Angel merely glared at Jack in sullen defiance.

"Don't give me that look, Angel," Jack said, tapping his ECHO meaningfully. "Remember, you're MY little girl…and nobody else's. Dick won't be coming for you. He's not your knight in shining armour, he's a monster! He's the dragon that I've gotta slay! Anyway, what, do you think he'll be able to rescue you? You know as well as I do, if you get taken off that Eridium feed, you die within a minute."

After a moment, Angel deigned to respond. "You think he's a monster, Dad?"

"I _know_ he's a monster, and you know it too!" Jack snapped.

"Then tell me, Dad…what am I?"

Jack blinked. "What?"

"What am I? Here I am, in a cage, hooked up to all sorts of Eridium feeds, supercharging that Vault Key which shouldn't be recharged yet, I'm a Siren, and so, what does that make me, Dad? Am I a monster to be caged as well?"

"You're my daughter, Angel," Jack said. The sad thing was, he seemed to believe it.

"So were many of those in Sanctuary. They were people's daughters and sons."

"They were just bandits…"

"So you say," Angel said. "Even the lowest Psycho is better than you."

Jack's eyes widened, and he stabbed a button on his ECHO. Angel screamed in agony, her mouth open in a grimace of pain. "YOU WILL LEARN RESPECT FOR YOUR FATHER, YOU LITTLE BITCH! I AM BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE ON PANDORA! EVEN YOU! ONLY I COULD SEE WHAT USE YOU COULD BE, BECAUSE IF IT WEREN'T FOR ME, WHAT WOULD YOU BE GOOD FOR, HUH?" He released the button, and as Angel slumped forward, he moved up to the force-field around her. I wanted to do something, anything, but I couldn't. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?" he asked, somewhat more calmly.

"Yes," Angel said, looking up at him, breathing heavily. A steely resolve entered her eyes, despite the pain. "Soon, they'll be coming for me. They'll be sending me to Hell. And I'll make sure I keep a place for you there."

She was given another dose of whatever pain-inducing thing Jack had. It sickened me, utterly, to the very core of my being. Even the part of me that came to the fore with the Sci-Zone was sickened. This was nothing less than a sadistic control freak of a parent. Eventually, Jack stopped, and glared at Angel. "Neither of us are dying any time soon, sweetheart. Depend on that. Remember, I am the hero of this story. Not Dick." And with that, Jack strode from the room.

For a time, I watched as Angel quietly wept. Then, she looked up at me. "I know you're there, Ricky. When my link to your ECHO saw that you were unconscious, I set up this link again. I held your communications protocol on silent until Dad left."

"That was…horrible," I said quietly. "How come you can't stop him?"

"He's good at controlling me. For every countermeasure I make for his control, he makes two more. He's had practise."

I looked at her, before saying, "Angel…I don't want you to die. You don't deserve death."

"Don't I?" Angel asked. "I helped destroy New Haven, and I nearly did the same thing to Sanctuary. I manipulated Roland and the others into opening the first Vault."

"Jack was pulling your strings!" I yelled. "Roland and Lilith know that now! They might not view you as an enemy anymore! They know you're a victim of Jack! Why do you have to be so fucking fatalistic?!"

"Language, Ricky," Angel chided half-heartedly. But then, her expression grew stern, even hard. "And how would you have me survive? What sort of cage would you keep me in? I have no doubt it'd be gilded, but how would it be any different from this? How would it be any different from what Jack does to me now?"

"…How dare you," I said. "How fucking _dare_ you? You know I'm not like your bastard father! And I've lived most of my life without you, and now you say I've got to live the rest of it without you? I don't want to cage you, Angel. I'll do my damnedest to make sure you're not caged!"

"Really? Do you even have a plan, Ricky?" Angel asked. "No, you don't. And even if, by some miracle, you manage to get me away from here…where can we go? I'm hated by so many, thanks to New Haven. Sanctuary's only going to add to the list."

"I don't care! Angel…the girl I knew wouldn't have given up. She never did when it came to a young boy who was so scared of himself, he wasn't sure he'd ever have any friends. She remembered him for so long, she reached out to him to contact him. Where has she gone? Did she have a reason for contacting me not so long ago? Because I'm not seeing her in front of me. All I'm seeing is someone who gave up, who doesn't want to fight. Is she dead already?" I looked away from her. "Then I don't have anything left to fight for, save my own pitiful excuse for a life."

Silence fell. It was I who broke it, sullenly muttering, "I've had enough of this. Goodbye."

After a moment, Angel nodded, her eyes glistening with fresh tears. "Goodbye, Ricky."

* * *

Now, there are plenty of sights both pleasant and unpleasant that one can wake up to. And I have to admit, having an excellent view of Moxxi's cleavage falls firmly into the former category. It helped mitigate the fact that I felt like shit, aching all over.

I was presumably in one of the backrooms of Moxxxi's, laid out on a bed, with Moxxi herself leaning over me, her made-up face showing genuine concern. There was a maternal nature to her expression, and I remembered that she did have at least two kids. "Rick…" she said quietly.

"Hello," I said. "Why do I feel like someone went all Clockwork Orange on me?"

"That's because they did," Moxxi said quietly. "Someone threw a bit of rubble at your head. You were knocked out almost instantly, and about three or four people began kicking you while you were down. Sir Hammerlock happened to see what was happening, and got my help to break it up. Believe me, all I had to do was threaten them with my Bad Touch, and they stopped. Oh, they grumbled, but…"

"Sorry, 'bad touch'?" I asked.

"One of my favourite weapons. A custom Maliwan SMG with corrosive rounds. I brought you inside, and called for Dr Zed. He had to finish fixing Roland up, so Lilith came over with a medikit. She looked very angry when she saw what they did to you."

"…Sure she wasn't angry with me?"

"Sugar, I know Lilith well enough to know what her anger is like. You may not have started out on her good side, but you've gotten there. I had to stop her from tracking down those responsible and setting them on fire. From what she said, you helped save Roland's ass. At the moment, she's back with Roland. Dr Zed came by briefly to see if you needed anything beyond a health replenisher. But those are good enough for cracked ribs and a concussion, apparently. You've still got some bruises, though. Those'll heal. Are you all right to walk?"

I got to my feet. A little woozy, but nothing serious. "Yeah, I guess. Thanks for helping me out, Moxxi."

"You're welcome, Rick. I envy the girl you're holding out for."

I scowled, remembering my conversation with Angel. "What's the matter?" Moxxi asked.

"A lot of things. But thanks again, Moxxi."

"You're welcome, again. Now, Lilith and Roland want to see you at Dr Zed's. I know that you may not want to travel across Sanctuary, so Sir Hammerlock has agreed to escort you. Roland's word is good enough for the Crimson Raiders, but some of the citizens won't take his word for it."

* * *

I was glad of Sir Hammerlock escorting me. He didn't normally go armed, but he had a pistol at the ready, and I had the Maliwan SMG Maya had given me. But there were many glares, and I heard more than one person yell, "Hyperion bastard!", and worse.

As I walked to Dr Zed's clinic, I reflected on Angel. Was she right? Had I become, in my obsession with freeing her, as bad as Jack? Would I be forced to cage her? Had I alienated my oldest friend with my declarations?

And she was right. I had no plan to get her out. Jack had to be keeping her secure in some sort of top secret facility. Getting in would be damn near impossible. Getting her out alive even more so.

We reached Dr Zed's clinic without much hassle beyond hurled insults. As I went in, I saw that there was a small crowd in there. A number of people had pulled up chairs around a rather grotty bed where Roland was laying. I recognised Scooter, Dr Tannis, and Private Jessup, who had taken off his helmet. Lilith was, of course, sitting as close to Roland as she could, clutching at his hand.

"Nice to see you up and about, Doctor Snyder," came the calm, cultured Southern accent of Dr Zed.

**DOCTOR ZED**

**The Last Word in Medicine on Pandora, Even If He Lost His Licence.**

I looked at the doctor, his grizzled face perpetually hidden by a surgical mask. Before heading off to the Firehawk, I had met him for the first time to get some supplies. I felt uneasy about his lack of a licence, but his products saved many lives, so I had to give him that. And it was clear that he did well enough for me and Roland.

"Thanks, Dr Zed. Still feel like one big bruise, though. Then again, I guess you're hurting more, Roland," I said.

"Got painkillers for that," Roland rasped, his mouth twisted in a rictus that was probably half caused by pain, and half caused by his joke. "Zed's fixing me up. I should be back on my feet in a few hours. All those fractures just made it more difficult."

I nodded, before turning to Scooter. "By the way, that probably would have looked more impressive from the outside, Scooter. I hope one of the others had a camera. You made this city fly. Congrats."

"Yep," Scooter said, swelling with pride. "Dayum, tho', what can I do t'top that?"

"Make a mechanical T-Rex vehicle?" I asked facetiously(1).

"Enough," Roland said, his authority cutting through the mirth. "We made it, but it was a close one. We're still counting the dead, but a conservative estimate has at least a third of Sanctuary died in Jack's bombardment. Davis is dead. The new Vault Hunters are currently making their way through the Highlands, trying to find somewhere they can rendezvous with us. If it weren't for all of our actions, more of us may be dead. As it is, Jack is still going to try and destroy us, especially as we know his secret: Angel."

Lilith's hand, the one that wasn't currently on Roland's arm, clenched convulsively into a fist. "You could hear it in her voice…that bastard…" Her fist flared violet briefly, and smashed into a wall, digging a substantial crater in it.

* * *

With Roland being healed up, Lilith and I returned to the Crimson Raiders HQ, with Dr Tannis in tow. "You ever felt this hated?" I asked the Siren as more glares were aimed at me.

"Yeah. When I wasn't being coveted for being a Siren," Lilith admitted. "Of course, even if I wasn't, being the Firehawk all but guaranteed it, as far as the Bloodshots were concerned."

I harrumphed. "I was feared and hated back in Hyperion, sure. But nobody ever tried to beat the shit out of me. Not after I left high school, anyway. But they saw me as a monster. Jack never let me forget that. Only a few people said otherwise. One of them is dead now. Dave, the guy who made me the shield grenades. And the other…"

We reached the Crimson Raiders HQ, and while Tannis returned to work in her lab, beginning to work on that Siren power projector device of hers, Lilith and I went upstairs. It was to our astonishment that the central desk, which normally had a hologram of the Crimson Raiders' logo, now displayed a hologram of Angel's face.

Lilith stared, before saying, "I thought we told you never to contact us again." Her tone, though, was not of anger, but of weariness.

"I can hack into most systems on Pandora. If I really wanted to, I could bring down Sanctuary. I could have brought it down years ago. Lilith, I'm…"

"Save it. I know you are. I know you were forced to do it. But apologies won't bring back the dead," Lilith said. "I just want to know why you're contacting us here and now."

"I'm working on countering Jack's monitoring. Even now, I'm helping the others. They're heading to Overlook so that I can get a Fast Travel station to them via moonshot. As for why…I think you can guess. I have something you guys want. And you guys have something I want."

"And what is that?" Lilith asked.

"Freedom. The only kind of freedom I can ever have," Angel said sadly. "The Vault Key is with me. You know what I am, according to Ricky. He is using me as a means to concentrate Eridium, like an electricity transformer increases the voltage of an electrical current. I know you'd want to come here, but unlike Maya, you have used Eridium enough that Jack can use you, so you must stay away."

Lilith nodded. "I understand. I'd rather die than help that son of a bitch."

"Language," Angel chided gently. "Jack has me in a special complex, Control Core Angel, in Thousand Cuts. There are three security measures in place…"

She told us things that seemed impossible. We first had to get a software upgrade for Claptrap from the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve, so that he could pass through a special barrier that would otherwise disintegrate anyone or anything that passed through it. Secondly, we needed to destroy the bunker guarding the entrance. Finally, we needed special biometrics from Jack himself, namely a bio-scan signature and a voiceprint. That being said, I knew we could probably get both from a body double of Jack's.

"So, you're really set on it," I asked her. "On dying."

"We've been over this, Ricky. My powers are great, they can reach over the entire world," she said. "But I can't save myself. Nobody can."

I blinked as her words came to me. _My powers are great, they can reach over the entire world_. A smile began to tug at my features. "Really?" I said. "You said I didn't have a plan. I beg to differ!" I pointed at the hologram. "Remember this, Angel!" I cried with joy. "When I get there, it won't be for your funeral! Get ready to elope!"

I then ran out of the room, laughing. It felt like the Sci-Zone, only without the amorality. Everything was so clear. I didn't have a plan, not really, but I had what could be the genesis of one. I sprinted down the stairs, just in time to see Tannis working on her device. "Dr Tannis!" I cried out. "Please tell me you're improving that device!"

"I am," Tannis said, looking at me somewhat uncertainly. "Why?"

"I need to know if what I ask is possible." And then, I began asking questions, questions which puzzled, but intrigued her. A few she didn't know about, and I'd have to ask Dr Zed. But she was caught up in my enthusiasm, that something seemed to click within her, and she set back to tinkering with her device, with considerably more enthusiasm.

Soon, I was back at Dr Zed's, asking a veritable blizzard of questions. And to my joy, he confirmed what I had hoped was possible. "I can rig up a life-support tank quite easily," he mused. "But that other thing…it may take time. We need to calibrate it to the necessary parameters, and we won't know that until the time comes."

"What are you planning, Doctor Snyder?" Roland asked, wincing as the regenerative serum from Dr Zed's ministrations mended his legs.

"Roland, if this works out, we won't just get the Vault Key. We'll be taking away one of Jack's most vital assets. If we can get this to work, we're getting Angel out of there, _alive!_"

**CHAPTER 14 ANNOTATIONS:**

**Well, things are darkest before the dawn, and the dawn just arrived. Admittedly, Snyder was a bit of a dick to Angel (and Angel does have a point: she is genuinely worried that Snyder will cage her), but her desire to die doesn't sit well with him. And to be fair, his obsession also helped him hit upon a solution. You may have noticed that I sowed the seeds of the solution earlier, mentioning Tannis' device (admittedly invented for this story) back in Chapter 11. He's also determined to make sure Angel is never caged again, hence the discussions with Zed.**

**Lilith and Snyder's relationship has also improved. She is more than willing to protect him. ******What's more, she also knows why she should stay away from Control Core Angel in this story.** ****And isn't Jack so vile towards his daughter? He does feel a very twisted love, but it's not true paternal love, more a kind of possessiveness. **

**Next chapter, the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve! I'm hoping to concentrate on this fanfic from now on, as it's not far from the end. Oh, and just to whet your appetite, I forgot to mention something in the last chapter's notes. I have written a draft first chapter of the sequel, which is now titled ****_You've Got to Hide Your Love Away_****. I won't post it, obviously, until I finish ****_Hooked on a Feeling_****, for obvious reasons.**

**Review answering time. ****Dynahazzar****: Thanks for your praise. As for your opinion regarding my annotations, this is merely my writing style, for fanfics, anyway. I'm glad you like the story, regardless, and I hope you continue to enjoy it.**

**Darkstar248****: Thanks. I'm sorry if 'jaundice-sack' confused you. As for Snyder staying in Sanctuary while everyone else was teleported, I had that planned more or less from the beginning when I first thought about what would happen during the Sanctuary bombing. I'm surprised to be the first doing that in a fanfic, or at least the first you've read. Nice to see I have some small originality.**

**MrGreen37****: Thanks again. And sorry, but I'm not sure how I can fit Steve into the story. Don't get me wrong, I'd like to. But I need to find the right place and time to fit him in, and this story is actually nearing its end. That being said, I have written him into the foreword of the sequel, and I'll see about slotting him in.**

**1\. That's a reference, obviously, to the Badassasaurus from ****_Mr Torgue's Campaign of Carnage_****. You can see Scooter creating something like that, can't you? Okay, so Scooter probably didn't, but even so…**


	16. Chapter 15: Le Mort De Bloodwing

**CHAPTER 15:**

**LA MORT DE BLOODWING**

Over the next day, I was kept busy, making preparations for my plan, such as it was. Believing that any good plan needed a good code name, I eventually decided on Operation: Neuter Jack. Not very creative, but certainly satisfying.

Tannis was doing quite well. My questions had clearly interested the half-crazed scientist, and she soon had a plan of the latest version of her device.

"Range," she said, "is not a problem. Power is, or rather, channelling it without destroying the device. Especially with what you want. I mean, you want Maya and Lilith to channel their powers through it?"

I nodded. "I should ask Maya if she can actually freeze time within her Phaselock. It should buy us time."

Dr Zed had finished his work quite quickly. All he needed to do was modify an existing, old life-support tank so that it could work with Eridium. The other thing was also surprisingly done quickly.

So, things were falling into place. Of course, my plan wasn't guaranteed to work. But having a plan was better than none.

I woke up late the next morning, to find that the others had finally made it back to Sanctuary, with Angel's help. It was decided to divide the various tasks of getting the means to enter Control Core Angel between the seven of us. Gaige, Krieg, and myself would be heading to the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve to track down the software for Claptrap, with Mordecai's help. Maya and Zer0 would be heading to Opportunity, and tracking down one of Jack's body doubles. And Axton and Salvador would be heading to Thousand Cuts: Roland and Lilith had a contact there, the Slab King, the leader of a brutal bandit gang who might be of assistance in destroying the bunker.

Roland was still recovering from nearly having his legs crushed, and he was still needed to lead the Crimson Raiders, of course. And Lilith was staying because she understood what the stakes were, and was collaborating with Dr Tannis on testing the device.

While I wasn't looking forward to facing death in the field again, so to speak, I couldn't do much more with the plan as it stood. Roland and Lilith knew what to do, just in case. And to tell the truth, I wanted to see the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve for myself. I'd wanted to go there for some time.

Once we got to the Preserve, we rendezvoused with Mordecai, who had a hideout in the area. He explained that he would have tried to help earlier during the whole Sanctuary mess, but Hyperion ambushed him, and had managed to capture his pet and partner, a bird of prey called Bloodwing, who had been carrying the software upgrade with her at the time. Bloodwing was of a species native to Pandora called the bloodwings (creative nomenclature, huh?). I heard that they could even change genders, which was weird. Apparently, according to Mordecai, Bloodwing was female at this point. It seemed that, in addition to getting the software to upgrade Claptrap, we were to try and rescue Bloodwing, as she had been taken into the Preserve, for experimentation.

I noticed that Krieg seemed somewhat apprehensive, unnaturally so. What could spook a Psycho? "Are you okay?" I asked him as we looked at the Preserve.

"It was here that it happened," Krieg said. I was surprised. Very rarely, he would talk in a quiet, sane voice. This was one of those times, apparently.

"What do you mean?"

"THEY PISSED PURPLE AND PURULENT POISON INTO MY PERSON!" Krieg bellowed, all of a sudden.

Despite the non-sequitur he had bellowed, I did get what he meant. I remembered the Eridium scarring on that bit of Psycho brain when I went into the Sci-Zone during the fight against Boom and Bewm. Psychos had Eridium scarring, as did other unfortunates. Including myself, though the Eridium didn't scar me per se, not literally. Rather, it changed my brain, my mind, while I was still in the womb. And Sirens could use Eridium to boost their powers, but given what happened to Angel, they risked becoming dependent on it to stay alive.

Krieg, it seemed, was another victim of the experiments here, the ones I had heard had been done by my own mentor, Doctor Samuels. They had taken a normal person (I presume Krieg was normal), and made him into a monster.

I very nearly said I was sorry, but I doubt those would have been the right words. Instead, I muttered, "That's seriously fucked up."

"MY SOUL WAS WELL AND TRULY FUCKED UP!" Krieg bellowed.

"…Does he have a mute button?" Mordecai asked.

Krieg whirled to face him. "NO BUTTON CAN STOP THE SCREAMING!"

"Okay, man, I get it," Mordecai said, holding his hands up in a placatory gesture. "Look, can you guys get going? I'll relay what intel I can find."

* * *

As we moved through the Preserve, fighting off Skags, Stalkers, and Rakks as we went, I found, disturbingly, the ECHO logs of Doctor Samuels. As it turned out, the rumours were true after all. She did perform human experimentation using slag and Eridium, though to be fair to her, Jack threatened Samuels' wife. Bastard.

Other ECHOs, strangely enough, told the tale of Maya, presumably of recordings Angel managed to get her father. I knew the story, more or less, already, but the recordings really made it hit home. Of the corruption of the Cult of the Impending Storm on Athenas. I listened as her irritation at being called a child, and kept deliberately ignorant, showed.

Sirens. Powerful beings, and drawing those who wanted to exploit them. Angel, locked away in Core Control Angel by her bastard father. Lilith, forced to evade those who wanted to exploit her, and make her own way in life. Maya, sequestered by a cult, and used as a figurehead of fear so that they could get their way.

And what did that make me, a self-proclaimed expert, someone who wanted to know as much as he could about them? Did that make me another exploiter? I sincerely hoped not, and yet, Angel's words about me potentially caging her again stung. Only my discussing with Lilith the plan reassured me by any means.

We finally came to an enclosure that Bloodwing was supposed to be kept in, a small artificial forest with a tree as a perch. But Bloodwing had, apparently, been taken from her enclosure to be experimented upon. And Jack couldn't resist taunting us about it.

As we made to leave, however, I saw something, and picked it up. "Well, I'll be," I muttered.

"What?" Gaige came over, and her eyes widened. "Is that what I think it is?"

I nodded. "Have you got somewhere safe to keep it?"

"I have a spare digistruct package. I can even have it kept warm. We're taking this to Mordecai, right?"

"Yeah. Knowing Jack, assuming he has Bloodwing, he probably has a nasty surprise waiting." As Gaige put the thing away, I continued. "He doesn't just want to kill us. He wants us to feel pain every step of the way. And that includes psychological warfare. Why else would he keep butting in with his smartarse remarks?"

"_Oooh, lookit the brain on Dick!_" Jack said over the ECHO. "_I didn't know you had qualifications as a shrink, Dick! A Dick psychologist. God, what Freud would have made of that?_"

"I dunno. What would he have made of a masked man who calls himself Handsome, and keeps making big buildings and statues of himself, huh? Not to mention all the 'Dick' jokes at my expense. You have an obsession with that word, Jack," I sneered back. "How small _is_ your dick? Assuming you didn't get surgery to beef it up. That doesn't count. That's probably the one thing you don't need to alter on your body doubles. I'll bet that Tim Lawrence has a bigger one than you. He didn't need surgery down there, did he?"

Silence on the other end. I knew I had pushed at least one button. Probably more. No, not pushed on them. Mashed them down with wild abandon like an orang-utan at the keyboard of a pipe organ.

Krieg had to go and spoil the moment. Well, not spoil it as much as give an unwanted but not unwelcome intrusion. "JAUNDICE-SACK HAS BIGGER MEAT THAN MASKED MIRROR-LICKER!"

"_Oh, has he? Has he?_" Jack snarled. "_Tell you what, Dick. That's what I'm gonna do to you when I get you. The entrée of your slow, painful death is going to be just that: an entrée, of your dick. I'm going to cut it off, cook it in slag, and then force-feed it to you. And I'm gonna make Angel watch every last second of it!_"

The threat did send a chill of fear running down my spine, but I decided to channel Kirk for once (I'm not much of a Trekkie), and sneered back, "You keep trying, Jack, but you're a shitty marksman, as you keep missing your target! If you really were a hero, you'd take me down in a single shot instantly, because I'm only a monster, aren't I? And not much of one! I just heard what you did to Samuels. That is not what a hero does, not to someone who doesn't want to hurt innocent people."

"_If you're against me, you're not innocent. End of story_," Jack snarled.

Gaige chose that moment to intervene. "Oh, wow, Jack, You know what you sound like? The author of some crappy adventure novel. Hell, it's probably fanfic too. Self-insert. You know those things don't go too well."

"_Newsflash, girlie. I __**am**__ the author of this story. It goes the way __**I**__ want it to. And with a stroke of the pen, or a tap on the keyboard, I can erase you all from existence, anyway I want you to._"

"YOU HAVE A PEN? HOW ABOUT A MAGIC TRICK?!(1)" Krieg yelled.

I blinked. Did Krieg say what I thought he did?

With a snarl of exasperation, Jack cut off his connection. "He declined," Gaige snarked.

* * *

It was when we found the last of Samuels' ECHO recordings that I discovered something disturbing. I saw Krieg listening intently as we heard of a family being experimented upon. A man, a woman, and their child. I felt a chill of horror when I heard the girl's name. Tina. She had been given a grenade to help her make an escape. So this was what happened to Tiny Tina. Was it the horror of the experience that drove her into her barely-sane state? Slag exposure? Or both, and more?

But what of her parents? I found my eyes drawn to Krieg. And he was looking down at the ECHO log with a strangely solemn look in his one visible eye. Was it because he heard the tales of people who had shared his fate? Or was I looking at a father whose daughter I had already met(2)?

The moment was ruined by Tannis, who asked for us to give the recordings to her once we were back in Sanctuary.

* * *

After battling our way through the Preserve, we came to what felt like an arena. Jack chose that moment to speak. "_What, you really want that mangy bird back so badly? Well, that's a shame, I've been doing all sorts of interesting Eridium experiments on her. You'd have liked them, Dick, especially if you were in the Sci-Zone._"

"_What did you do to her, Jack?!_" Mordecai yelled over ECHO.

"_Oh, made her better, faster, and stronger than you ever did, you lousy lush. I hate to see her go, really._" In the ground ahead of us, a pair of doors slid open, and a lift raised what had to be Bloodwing. Except she was…changed.

"Mordecai…" I said quietly. "We have a big problem, pun intended."

"_What the hell do you mean, Snyder?! What did he do to her?_"

I watched as the cargo lift brought Bloodwing fully into the light. Purple clouds of slag purled around her. She was recognisable as Bloodwing, but she had grown to massive size. "He's…turned her into Ridley's feathered cousin(3)," I said.

"_Who the fuck is Ridley?_" Mordecai snapped.

"_Ooh! Ooh! I know this one!_" Jack said. "_Bigass dragon-pterosaur from_ Metroid, _sworn archenemy of Samus Aran! I win, and you get the consolation prize. She's all yours!_"

With that, Bloodwing spread her wings, and screeched loudly at us.

**MUTATED BLOODWING**

**Terror Hawk! Stay on this Channel! This is an Emergency(****4)****!**

As the bird lunged into the sky, I heard Mordecai whisper, in both awe and horror, "_Oh my God_…"

Jack then chose that moment to speak. "_You'd better give up, asswipes! I can imbue Bloodwing with every element there is: slag, fire, electricity, corrosion, and…and…dammit, what was the last one again?_"

Mordecai swore. "_Look, guys, soften her up, and once she's weak enough, I'll hit her with a tranq!_"

"Easy for you to say!" I yelled, as Bloodwing swooped in. She knocked me flying, into a wall. The pain jolted me into gear, instead of knocking me out. The Sci-Zone, blocked by Wilhelm's chemicals, surged to the fore.

I felt the world drain of complications and complexity. I felt morality become optional. I felt the world become that much simpler. I surged to my feet, and pointed at Bloodwing. "What they did to you was not science! I will show them what is…for science!"

**DOCTOR RICHARD SNYDER**

**I'm the Doctor. Basically, ****_run_****(****5)****.**

Even Bloodwing seemed to shiver, slightly, at my change. Alternative hypothesis confirmed. Animals can sense the change in me. Even those driven insane by slag and Eridium.

I took out the Maliwan pistol, set it to electrical rounds, and began shooting Bloodwing with it. "Use electrical rounds, aim for the joints!" I yelled at Gaige and Krieg. "Use them like a taser!"

As we fired at the enormous bird, she took to the skies once more, only to be caught by flamethrowers Jack had positioned in the arena, or whatever this place was. Maybe an observation area, but it looked more like a place to watch animals tear each other apart. It felt like a Roman arena. "_Let's see how you like a little fire!_" Jack crowed.

Mordecai, meanwhile, was babbling in a panic, apparently getting his tranquiliser round ready. "_This is gonna be fine. Just got to tranq her, and then get her back to Sanctuary, and then…I dunno, take her to Dr Zed?_"

Null hypothesis confirmed. Panic can get to anyone. Even someone like Mordecai.

The fight continued in this vein for a while. Every now and then, Jack would declare a new element for Bloodwing to get imbued with. First, electricity, and then corrosion. He kept on wondering out loud what other element there was. I wondered myself. I couldn't recall it for the life of me. Mordecai, to his eternal credit, managed to spot Bloodwing's attack patterns, which hadn't changed, even in her larger form. He then called out to us what to avoid.

A good shot from Gaige, who was wielding a sniper rifle, knocked the microchip containing the upgrade from the collar around Bloodwing's neck. But then, as Gaige ran to get it, the giant bird knocked her down, and pinned Gaige with her claws.

But the brief opening was all that Mordecai needed. Suddenly, there was the sound of a distant gunshot, and Bloodwing spasmed, and then slumped over to her side, breathing heavily. Gaige scrambled out just in time, avoiding getting crushed. She plucked the microchip from the ground, and pocketed it.

"_Oh, I remember now_," Jack said, as a strange beeping began to emanate from the collar. "_How could I forget? It's that meathead Torgue's favourite: EXPLOSIIIIVE!_"

The explosion sent us all flying. When I picked myself off the ground, I felt the Sci-Zone dribble away. That wasn't all that was dribbling. My face and chest were liberally painted with the blood and brains of Bloodwing. I barely heard Mordecai screaming in grief and denial, even as Bloodwing's now-headless corpse slumped onto the ground.

"_THAT, Dick, is why I fuck with my Dick, and not that my Dick fucks me_," Jack sneered. "_Turn yourselves in and earn a quick death, or that bird is just the beginning._"

As Mordecai screamed angrily at Jack, I stared numbly at Bloodwing's corpse. Gaige and Krieg couldn't get me to move, so Krieg put me over his shoulder, and began hauling arse. As I watched the headless corpse of Bloodwing disappear behind the doors, the one remaining part of me that could think properly knew that I had failed Mordecai, in failing to save the one he loved. Did I deserve to save Angel? Did I have any chance at all, given this latest demonstration of Jack's vindictiveness?

I didn't know.

**CHAPTER 15 ANNOTATIONS:**

**Sorry if this one feels a bit rushed. I wanted to concentrate on certain events within the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve, rather than go into detail (partly because it's been a long time since I've played this level). I'm also trying to get to the end of the story ASAP. That being said, I'm not writing the next chapter until I actually play the mission ****_Where Angels Fear to Tread_****. That's to make sure that I write these bits with the necessary verisimilitude. Never fear, though, that is the very next mission in my current playthrough of ****_Borderlands 2_****, so, with any luck, expect the next chapter in a couple of days.**

**I hope that Snyder, Krieg, and Gaige's verbal smackdown of Jack goes down well.**

**Time to answer a review, that of ****mattman65****: Thank you very much. I don't know how the theme of the WWE wrestlers' entrance goes. However, being a Whovian myself, I do know how ****_I am the Doctor_**** goes. Both songs, actually. Well, the other one is actually called ****_Who Is The Doctor?_****, and is sung by none other than Jon Pertwee (the Third Doctor). Look it up on YouTube (punch in 'Jon Pertwee' and 'Who is the Doctor?'). It's cheesy, but worth a listen.**

**Anyway, where was I? ****_I am the Doctor_****, sadly, wasn't what I had in mind for Snyder's theme when he enters the Sci-Zone. In fact, I hit upon the theme while writing Chapter 8. It's ****_The 13_****_th_****_ Struggle_**** from ****_Kingdom Hearts II_****. The frenetic and unhinged nature of that music makes it perfect for Snyder when he's in the Sci-Zone.**

**In response to your request that I have Snyder do a Doctor-like moment, I thought the bit at the end of the previous chapter, where he promises that he will free Angel, was basically his version of the Ninth Doctor's promise to the Daleks and Rose at the end of ****_Bad Wolf_****. And, of course, if you paid attention up above, his latest splash is a reference to a line the Eleventh Doctor uses.**

**1\. Snyder references a line from ****_Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan_**** (where, shortly before the infamous "KHAAAAAN!" line, Kirk taunts Khan by saying that Khan is killing everyone BUT Kirk, his target). Krieg, of course, references the Joker's infamous 'magic trick' from ****_The Dark Knight_****. You can see Krieg using a pen on someone in this manner, can't you?**

**2\. Although I've left it somewhat ambiguous here, I'll come out and say it outright: for the sake of this story, Krieg is Tina's father.**

**3\. As Jack explains, Ridley is a giant pterosaur-like space dragon from the ****_Metroid_**** games. He has an annoying tendency of not dying, as he appears in most of the instalments of the series. I love fighting him in ****_Metroid Prime_****: though hard, it's a thrilling battle, and with an excellent remix of his theme.**

**4\. This is a relatively obscure reference, though it may be known to people who are fans of the audio play production company, Big Finish. It's to the opening lines of every episode of ****_Terrahawks_****. ****_Terrahawks_**** was one of the many puppet TV shows created by Gerry Anderson of ****_Thunderbirds_**** fame. Noted for its humour and dark stories, it was recently revived by Big Finish. I'm not sure whether it's any good, as I haven't seen any episodes for years (I have dim memories of the title sequence, particularly a view of main villain Zelda's brain being shown), and the clips I saw on YouTube tend to be somewhat cheesy. But the theme is awesome, especially in orchestral form. In fact, one enterprising YouTuber has married the orchestral version of the theme to the titles, and it is glorious. Look up 'Terrahawks orchestral titles'.**

**5\. A line used by the Eleventh Doctor in ****_Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour_****. He uses the same line, but shouts the word 'run', in ****_Doctor Who: The Doctor's Wife_****.**


	17. Chapter 16: Arm Yourself

**CHAPTER 16:**

**ARM YOURSELF**

It was an urgent couple of days while we made final preparations for the assault on Control Core Angel. Mordecai was hard to console, at least until Gaige and I gave him the thing we had found in Bloodwing's enclosure. It was none other than an egg, and one that was apparently fertilised. It was the only thing that stopped Mordecai from drinking more than he usually did. He very nearly sent Axton and Salvador to the Dust to get some Rakk liquor(1). But now, he had Bloodwing's legacy. He told me that he couldn't replace Bloodwing, but he hoped that her child would be as good a partner as she had been. He was still in mourning, though, and he drank perhaps too much at Moxxxi's.

Spurred by the death of Bloodwing, I began refining aspects of my plan. I discussed things with Tannis, Roland, and Lilith about how we would free Angel. Roland and Lilith, I have to say, improved my plan, shaping it from the very rough draft I had to something that could be called a plan, and flexible enough to withstand most of what Jack could throw at us.

As it turned out, we had more new visitors at Sanctuary. During their visit to Opportunity, Maya and Zer0 had encountered not one, but two Jack doppelgangers. One of them fought back. The other didn't, and indeed, begged for his life. As it turned out, the body double they had killed had exactly what they were looking for. The living one helped them do other things in Opportunity, including help destroy the arena that Jack was building as a ripoff of Moxxi's own Underdome.

And what do you know? This body double turned out to be none other than Timothy Lawrence! When he mentioned his real name to Maya and Zer0, they remembered me mentioning him. After considerable debate over ECHO with Roland and Lilith, it was decided to take him prisoner.

Then again, Tim, as I found out when I met him, had little to complain about. Roland was afraid of keeping him at the Crimson Raiders HQ, as anti-Hyperion sentiment in Sanctuary was at an all-time high. It was decided to keep him at Moxxxi's. He had already been thoroughly debriefed by Roland and Lilith, who were willing to give him a chance to prove that his defection was genuine. When I went to meet him, however, I found him passionately snogging Moxxi, one hand slipping under her costume, and learning how callipygian Moxxi truly was.

I couldn't help it. I giggled. There was something bizarre, and yet sweet, about it. True, Tim did look too much like Handsome Jack for my liking (though by now, they had removed the mask and surgical clips to reveal Jack's original face), but there was a nervousness in front of Moxxi that I knew the real Jack would never have shown.

Moxxi was the first to see me, and she pouted theatrically. "Oh, Rick," she complained. "Did you have to come in and be the third wheel?"

"Sorry. I just wanted to see an old mate."

Tim, albeit wearing the features of Jack, turned to face me. "That's not the only time you barged in on me while I was getting to second base," Tim remarked, a little sourly, but with good humour. God, but it was weird to hear him talk with Jack's voice.

**TIMOTHY LAWRENCE**

**Cursed with Handsomeness for his Student Loans**

"To be fair, Tim," I said, "she turned out to be a stalker. We are talking about Ramona(2), right? The one I used to piss off by calling her Romana? Or Romanadvoratrelundar(3)?"

"Yeah, her," Tim said, wincing at the memory.

Moxxi smirked at the byplay. "Tim here was telling me all about you, Rick. Remember that time when you rage-quit while playing _Half-Life: Opposing Force Retro_(4) with him and Dave?"

I winced. "You mean when I had to replace the bloody screen? I'm never going to live that one down, am I?"

"Nope. Hey, it's good to see you, Rich," Tim said, getting to his feet. "Jack had me acting as some over-glorified foreman at Opportunity. I'd tried to leave his employ, see, but, well, he has a long reach. I heard about Dave, by the way."

My face fell. "Really? Look, Tim, I'm…"

"Don't be, Rich. You fucked up, sure, but it was Jack who murdered him. You didn't do anything wrong, but bring Jack's attention to you. Anyway, it seems like you're getting your own back. He called me up while I was helping the others in Opportunity and ranted about how his dick was bigger than mine, and without surgery. Apparently that was your doing."

"He keeps making Dick jokes," I remarked. "He can dish it out, but he can't take it back."

Moxxi smirked. "He never could. Let's just say the final straw that had him destroying the Underdome, even though everything else provoked him, was me telling him that he wasn't filet mignon, but a small lump of rotten, maggot-ridden gristle." She chuckled at the memory. "Worth it."

Tim nodded. He seemed a little nervous around Moxxi, but fine enough. "So, Rich, I heard you're going after Angel."

"Yeah. Did you know she was a Siren?"

"No, man! I thought she was more than an AI, but Jack never really told us any of this shit. Lilith told me, and I have to say, _damn_. Using your own daughter like that…" It was interesting to see Tim showing the concern and horror on his face that Jack should truly feel if he actually gave a damn about his daughter. "No wonder Jack wants you dead. Quite frankly, I was willing to go with you guys to Angel, but Brick reckons that some of his Slabs might take a potshot at me anyway. And the Crimson Raiders don't trust me enough. Can't say I blame them, though this is better than being dead with a bullet between the eyes."

"Oh come on, Moxxi's good company," I said. "She's nice, caring, mixes a damn fine drink, and can give some very interesting conversation. And, of course, well, there is the obvious aesthetic benefits. I mean, look at her."

Moxxi laughed. "Rich, you know how to make a girl feel wanted."

"I guess, though Jack posting bounties on us would have the same effect," I remarked. This provoked a round of laughter from all of us.

* * *

I left Tim and Moxxi to get re-acquainted (apparently they met more than once, including on Elpis), and returned to the Crimson Raiders HQ. I had no desire to be a gooseberry, and while I thought it weird that Moxxi wanted to be intimate with someone who looked and sounded so much like one of her ex-husbands, I guessed Tim's actual personality helped matters.

Tannis was with Lilith in Tannis' lab, making the final adjustments to her device. "Okay. Now, Lilith, concentrate."

"I know how to use my powers, Doctor," Lilith said, before concentrating. A violet aura surrounded her, and then, seconds later, a most unexpected shape appeared. A Raider, masked and armed to the teeth. What was more unexpected was the fact that, after materialising, he merely waved enthusiastically, and hollered, "Heyooo!"

I blinked, trying hard not to panic. Lilith and Tannis certainly weren't. Eventually, I asked, "You know this guy?"

"Yeah. He's one of Claptrap's buddies. We've met him a couple of times," Lilith said. "Richard, meet Steve."

"Heyooo!"

**STEVE**

**Heyooo!**

"Okay. Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, I guess, Steve."

"Heyo!" Steve then turned to Lilith. "Heyo?"

"Sure. Here's some money for your trouble, Steve." Lilith counted out some notes, and handed them to the grateful bandit. "You're going to Moxxxi's?"

"Heyooo!" Which I was thinking meant '_hell, yeah!_' He then swaggered out of the Crimson Raiders HQ.

"Well," I muttered. "That just happened. Can he say anything other than 'heyo'?"

"Rarely. He's easier to understand than Krieg, though," Lilith said. "So, how was Tim?"

"Let's just say that he and Moxxi are enjoying themselves. I decided not to be a gooseberry. So, I guess you got Steve to test the projection device?"

Lilith nodded. "He was at the Zaford clan's bar, The Holy Spirits, when I had Claptrap contact him via ECHO. We had him go to Thousand Cuts via Fast Travel, and then, I teleported him here. We needed to make sure it was in range."

"And it worked perfectly!" Tannis enthused. "No overloads, and the tolerance was well within expected parameters!"

"Yes, but will it work in Core Control Angel?" I asked.

"Your ECHO should work in there, especially after I've modified it. We can't use Angel's ECHO connection, given Jack's precautions, so we're going to have to use you. Judging by what you described of Angel's room, you'll have to disable the force-field around her first."

Lilith nodded. "Roland's good with that. Once that is done, get in close to her, and activate your ECHO and call to us. We'll do the rest. The others might have to fight their way out."

"Don't worry," came a by-now familiar and somewhat unwelcome voice. "We're good at doing that."

The man who came down the stairs from Roland's operation room was massive, to say the least. A big hulk of a man whose simian brow and piggy eyes basically screamed 'meathead' and 'thug' at the beholder. Only Krieg really rivalled his size here, and Krieg was insane. This guy, however, was merely bloodthirsty, and a little too fond of violence. He was well-named, too: Brick, also known as the Slab King.

**BRICK**

**Loves small dogs and big violence.**

I'd met him when I first got back from the Preserve. He wasn't particularly happy to see a Hyperion employee, but he accepted me, albeit reluctantly, on Roland and Lilith's word. I remembered Jack ranting about the Slabs, the gang of bandits before, but I never knew that a former Vault Hunter ran them. I also didn't know that this huge hulk of a man liked dogs. Apparently one of the reasons he was so angry against Hyperion was that someone working for them murdered a puppy of his.

He was also somewhat cavalier about the lives of his own men, though to be fair, he said that they were idiots. And while Brick was simple and unlearned, one thing I learned very quickly was that he was far from stupid. He was simple in the way that myself, in the Sci-Zone, was simple: shaved of morality and other considerations. But he was also perceptive and cunning.

"You think this plan'll work, Doc?" Brick asked.

I looked at him, and then at the others. Pointing to myself, then to Lilith, and then to Tannis, I asked, "Which doctor?"

"You, Doc!" Brick said, pointing at me. "D'you think this plan will work?"

"Getting Angel out alive? I don't know. There's no guarantee we will. But I'll be damned if I didn't give it my best shot. If we succeed, then we not only get a powerful ally into the bargain, but we neuter Jack, figuratively. I know you want to do so literally, but there's a long line for that."

"Eh, fuck the line," Brick said, putting a fist into his palm. "But I like the thought. How can we trust Angel, though?"

"How can you trust me?" I asked.

"Good point," Brick said. "I'll be keeping an eye on you, Doc. Roland and Lilith say you're on the level, but I didn't stay alive leading the Slabs without keeping an eye out."

"Brick, as much as that remark hurts me, that's a sign of sanity and critical thought. Oh, and remember to watch out if I start yelling about 'For science!'."

He scoffed. "Will do."

* * *

And then, the time came to go to Thousand Cuts. Claptrap proved surprisingly amenable to going to Thousand Cuts. I had taken that opportunity to divest myself of the hated (and by now, much-battered and smeared) Hyperion suit, at long last. Thousand Cuts was going to be cold, though, and a brown trenchcoat was what I wore over my new clothes. I liked collared shirts and jeans, so I got a black shirt from a vending machine Lilith pointed me to, along with jeans and boots.

As we ended up in Thousand Cuts, and a number of Loaders were sent in, I started the music player. Thanks to my ECHO device and Brick's willingness, a song began blaring out of the speakers of his men's Buzzards. I wasn't leading the charge, but I was right in the middle, and ready for war. And Jack would know it from the song.

_When you take a life,_

_Do you know what you give?_

_Odds are you won't like what it is._

_When the storm arrives,_

_Would you be seen with me,_

_By the merciless eyes I've deceived?_

Vault Hunters old and new, the Slabs, and Claptrap began their assault. Claptrap soon brought down the forcefield gate, and we swarmed through, storming through the area, making our way to the Control Core Angel complex.

_I've seen angels fall from blinding heights,_

_But you are nothing so divine,_

_Just next in line._

We fought together. Even though she was staying behind in Sanctuary, Maya was able to use Tannis' device to Phaselock enemies in our way. Salvador, Krieg, and Brick, filled with bloodlust, tore through the enemy lines. Roland and Axton fired at them with their sentry turrets and other weapons. Zer0 disappeared and reappeared, decapitating soldiers and engineers. Gaige's Deathtrap took on the Loaders. And I fired at the enemy, using the shield grenades strategically. Claptrap took cover, of course, and cowered. Brick's Slabs swooped in on their Buzzards, giving us the best damned air support one could want.

_Arm yourself because no one else here will save you!_

_The odds will betray you, and I will replace you._

_You can't deny the prize, it may never fulfil you._

_It longs to kill you, are you willing to die?_

_The coldest blood runs through my veins,_

_You know my name._

Amidst mortar fire, we rushed up the path up the mountain, the music following us.

_If you come inside,_

_Things will not be the same,_

_When you return to my night._

_And if you think you've won,_

_You never saw me change_

_The game we have been playing_.

Constructors, Loaders, Soldiers and Engineers. All of them determined to kill us. Handsome Jack sent them to kill us. He sent them there to die. All for the sake of his power. Later, when everything would die down, I would mourn the employees, the ones who thought of us as little more than bandit scum. I wonder how many of them were just in it for the paycheck, how many of them were truly nasty, and how many of them left behind widows and orphans. I hoped there weren't too many of the latter.

_I've seen diamonds cut through harder men,_

_Than you yourself but if you must pretend,_

_You may meet your end_.

Jack…he murdered God knows how many himself. Helena Pierce and Dave were not the only ones, surely. And through his commands, he had killed a legion more people. He claimed to want order on Pandora. He just wanted control, and power.

_Arm yourself because no one else here will save you!_

_The odds will betray you, and I will replace you._

_You can't deny the prize, it may never fulfil you._

_It longs to kill you, are you willing to die?_

_The coldest blood runs through my veins_…

We began the final approach to the peak that contained Control Core Angel. I had to admit, Jack picked a beautiful spot for it. Maybe he thought he was doing his daughter a favour, even if she was buried deep within the heart of this peak.

_Try to hide your hand,_

_Forget how to feel,_

_Life is gone with just_

_A spin of the wheel_.

This was it. The last stage was ahead. Jack was sure to throw as much as he could at us. We just had to show we were better. We surged forward.

_Arm yourself because no one else here will save you!_

_The odds will betray you, and I will replace you._

_You can't deny the prize, it may never fulfil you._

_It longs to kill you, are you willing to die?_

_The coldest blood runs through my veins,_

_You know my name!_

_You know my name._

_You know my name!_

_You know my name._

_You know my name!_

_You know my name!_

_You know my name!_

And with that, we got to the lift that would take us to where we needed to go. Now, it was going to get real…

**CHAPTER 16 ANNOTATIONS:**

**Okay, I decided to start this chapter before doing the ****_Where Angels Fear to Tread_**** mission. But I finished that mission today, and it's the beginning of the end of this story. I estimate 3-4 chapters until the end, depending.**

**Anyway, at last, we get some cameos. One that has been repeatedly requested is none other than Steve. So, here he is. Sorry that his appearance was more of a token appearance, but it was the only way I could think of fitting him in. But here he is. Heyo!**

**I wonder how many of you were surprised (pleasantly so, of course) by Timothy Lawrence's appearance? I thought, away from Handsome Jack's employ, he'd be better. And yes, I ****_am_**** shipping Tim and Moxxi (which, if I reach my adaptation of ****_Mr Torgue's Campaign of Carnage_****, will bear fruit). Look at it this way, Moxxi may like someone who has Jack's looks, but none of the putrid personality. Keep in mind that amongst her many paramours are Mordecai, Jack (as mentioned), and Motor Momma. Anyway, as far as this story is concerned, Tim wasn't the body double killed by the Vault Hunters for the voice changer and bioscan thing.**

**And, of course, Brick has finally made an appearance. As well as Bloodwing's successor. I wrote Snyder finding the egg (although I didn't say exactly what it was) into the last chapter for that reason.**

**Finally, we have an awesome attack sequence, set to ****_You Know My Name_****, the theme song of ****_Casino Royale_****. Obviously, I don't own the song and lyrics: Chris Cornell and David Arnold (the latter of whom has composed one of the best ****_Doctor Who_**** themes ever) own them.**

**Review answering time: ****Darkstar248****: I…didn't get it until you explained it. I've never heard that sort of euphemism before. I laughed at it, though.**

**mattman65****: Thanks.**

**MrGreen37****: It was for me when I finally got around to doing it. I knew it was coming, but that somehow made it worse. So this story, you should like. And yes, Krieg is ridiculously hammy. He's basically Brian Blessed with his beard shaved and turned into a homicidal psychopath. So, not too far from his roles as King Richard IV in ****_The Black Adder_****, or King Yrcanos in ****_Doctor Who: Trial of a Timelord: Mindwarp_****. I can just hear Krieg scream "VAROOONIK!"**

**1\. A reference to the sidequest where you do the same. Moxxi tries to intervene. You have a choice of giving the liquor to Mordecai, or to Moxxi. In my current playthrough, I chose the former.**

**2\. Ramona is named for Sheldon's groupie and pseudo-stalker assistant in ****_The Big Bang Theory_**** episode ****_The Cooper-Nowitzki Theorem_****.**

**3\. After choosing the above name, I couldn't resist this ****_Doctor Who_**** reference. Romanadvoratrelundar, better known as Romana, was a companion of the Fourth Doctor's from ****_Doctor Who_****. Somewhat haughty, she nonetheless became one of the Doctor's most valuable companions. Lalla Ward, the actress who played Romana's second incarnation, is currently married to none other than Richard Dawkins! Lucky guy. Did I mention that they were introduced by a mutual acquaintance by the name of Douglas Adams? No, ****_I am not making this up!_**

**4\. ****_Half-Life: Opposing Force_**** was developed by Gearbox. That's right, the very same company that made ****_Borderlands_****. I nearly put ****_Halo _****down, but decided to put in a reference to one of their games.**


	18. Chapter 17: Fools Rush In Where Angels

**CHAPTER 17:**

**FOOLS RUSH IN WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD**

We were now perched on a sort of beautiful platform with a view on top of the peak. The way into Control Core Angel proper was blocked by a forcefield. To deal with that, we needed to deal with the bunker that had been mentioned.

Of course, things were never that simple. As we made our way to the top platform, Loaders and Auto-Turrets began digistructing. Once we fought our way to that top platform, we saw the bunker, a squat, malevolent-looking thing that made me feel chills down my spine.

I won't bore you with the details of that particular battle. We had to shoot a ridiculous amount of Auto-Turrets and Loaders. The view was great, but the battle ensured that none of us could appreciate it.

Unfortunately, once we destroyed the Auto-Turrets, we heard the unwelcome voice of Handsome Jack emanating from speakers built into the bunker. "_Well, you're beginning to really piss me off. The thing is, though, did you think that I'd protect Angel with just some bots and lousy Auto-Turrets? You're not __**at **__the bunker._"

I got a bad feeling at the same time as the bunker, squat and menacing as it was, began to rise into the air. "Oh shit," I muttered. "THAT'S the bunker?!"

"_Bingo, Dick! It's not a place!_" The bunker swivelled around to reveal giant red eyes. A malevolent, electronic chuckle emanated from it.

**BNK-3R**

**I'm a Bunker, Buster.**

Jack continued, "_Meet the BNK-3R defence robot, the finest of its kind ever built. I designed it, after all. Now, do me a big solid, and die, all of you. Because if you don't, I'll make sure you'll regret it later._"

Dying, unfortunately for Jack, wasn't on the menu today. Not for us, if we could help it. Roland, Salvador, Brick, Krieg, and Axton brought out the big guns: rocket launchers, the best they could get from the Slabs' armoury. Roland and Axton also brought out their turrets, Axton's now having rocket launcher mods. Gaige commanded Deathtrap to attack it, while I switched my Maliwan pistol to corrosive rounds, and began firing. Zer0 switched to a sniper rifle, and peppered the weaker parts of the BNK-3R with rounds.

Suddenly, Brick's eyes widened as a massive gun emerged from the top of the BNK-3R. "Holy shit! TAKE COVER!"

Even as he yelled those words, a beam of lilac light lanced out, and struck the ground near me as I tried to leap away. The resulting explosion hurled me through the air. With a sickening crack, I hit my head against a pile of nearby crates, and everything went dark.

* * *

I woke to the smell of blood, smoke, and gunpowder. Roland was looking down at me, concerned. "Doctor Snyder!"

"Roland…" I winced at the pain in my head, and then looked around. Nearby, perched on some arches, was the remains of the BNK-3R. "We won?"

"Barely. Most of the Slabs didn't make it," Roland said.

"Big loss," Brick snorted. He'd already made his contempt for his own men clear before. "A shame you weren't awake, Doc. It was a pretty badass battle." He put his fist into his palm again, and grinned. "That bunker robot was pretty strong. But we were stronger. And Gaige and Zer0, they stood over you, defending you. They'd make good Slabs."

Roland helped me to my feet. "Okay," I said. "Sorry I wasn't of any use there. We're good to go?"

"Yes. The forcefield over the entrance to Control Core Angel is down. We can move as soon as you're ready."

"I'm as ready as I'm ever going to be," I said. "Let's go. Let's fucking do this."

* * *

Krieg, Zer0, Gaige, Salvador, and Axton were all waiting by the door leading to Control Core Angel. It seemed that Zer0 was choosing to emulate Handsome Jack, using the bio-scan sample and the voice modulator. Scary, hearing Jack's voice coming from the featureless helmet.

He submitted himself to the bio-scan, which worked, and then was told the password by Angel: "_I love you._" Sickening. What Jack felt towards his daughter wasn't love. It was possessiveness of a most extreme kind.

So what did that make me? Was what I felt towards Angel truly love? Or was it a similar kind of possessiveness?

In the end, it was irrelevant, or at least I hoped it was. I wanted to free Angel from her cage.

As we boarded the elevator behind the now opened door, Jack snarled, over ECHO, that he was going to make sure that everyone in Sanctuary died looking at their lungs, as he intended to remove them from their chests. I ignored him. All that mattered now was saving Angel.

* * *

We moved through the corridors of Control Core Angel in silence. We knew here was the final battle. Before long, we came to a console that we activated. "Phase shift activated," came the familiar tones of Angel.

A hologrammatic overlay appeared over the dark room. We were now seeing a virtual world. And materialising out of the air was Angel, dressed in that clothing. I realised it was some sort of medical harness. Glowing wings of energy sprouted from her back.

This was the first time the others had seen Angel as she really was. They stared at her in awe, and in horror at her state, her too-thin limbs, the glowing tattoos, the desperation in her eyes.

"You're here," she said, tears glistening. "You knew what I am, didn't you?"

"A catalyst for the Vault Key," Roland confirmed. "That Jack would do that to his own daughter…but we came here for one reason."

She nodded, resigned. "To get the Vault Key. And to kill me."

"No," I said. As she looked at me, I stepped forward. "To rescue you. Or die trying."

Before Angel could say anything further, Jack's voice screamed, "**_GET THE HELL AWAY FROM MY DAUGHTER!_**" With a scream from Angel, the holographic overlay over the room dissolved, and the door to the central chamber of Control Core Angel opened. And there it was, the room Angel showed me in our shared dreams. A perverse mixture of throne room, prison, and tomb. With Angel right in the middle, the dome of a forcefield covering her.

We all rushed through, as Jack yelled, "_WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, ANGEL?!_"

"Stopping you, you piece of shit!" she screamed back at him.

"_ENOUGH LANGUAGE FROM YOU!_" Jack roared back. He had all but lost his temper now.

Angel looked at us, pleading with her eyes. Her image, the one that had appeared in the ECHO transmissions, stared at us from screens all around the chamber. The real Angel pointed to a number of machines pumping Eridium into the machinery above her. "See those? They're the Eridium injectors! Destroy them, now!"

"_Oh no, you don't!_" Jack screamed. "_Shields up!_"

I looked at Roland. "Do you know where to deal with the shields?"

Roland glanced around the chamber, and then nodded, pointing to a control panel nestled between two of the Eridium injectors, above us. "Brick!" Roland called.

Brick got what Roland meant, and as Roland ran at the massive man, Brick cupped his hands together, and boosted Roland's jump, the soldier grabbing onto a bridge leading to the shield controls. As he clambered up, Jack yelled from the screens around the chamber, "_What the fuck do you think you're doing?! Keep this up, and I'll be heading down there to make sure you see the colour of your liver!_"

"He's lying!" Angel yelled. "He's a coward. But he's got plenty of Loaders and automated systems to guard me. Watch out!"

Sure enough, special Loaders began materialising out of the air, digistructed. "_What're you gonna do, Dick?_" Jack sneered. "_I pumped that room full of that crap Wilhelm used on you. You can't use the Sci-Zone. Come on, Dick. Is this 'for science'?_"

"No," I said, thumbing my music player to the right track, and then pressing play.

_Hooga chaka hooga hooga,_

_Hooga chaka hooga hooga,_

_Hooga chaka hooga hooga,_

_Hooga chaka hooga hooga…_

"Not for science, Jack," I snarled. Clarity came into the world, not from the Sci-Zone, but because the objective was simple. Because I knew what I wanted, and how I was going to get it.

"_Then what?_"

_I can't stop this feeling deep inside of me,_

_Girl, you just don't realise what you do to me._

_When you hold me in your arms so tight,_

_You let me know things are alright._

"FOR HER!" I yelled, pointing at Jack's visage on one of the screens.

**DOCTOR RICHARD SNYDER**

**Sane AND Scary**

_Ahhhh, ah-ahhhhh, ah-ahhhhh! _

_Hooked on a feeling!_

_I'm high on believing_

_That you're in love with me…_

We fought off the Loaders, the turrets, electrical generators, whatever Jack threw at us. Roland would occasionally throw his turret into the fray. Jack was throwing everything he could at us now, while Angel summoned digistructed caches of ammo to help us. Jack alternately hurled insults and threats, and begged for us to spare the life of his 'baby girl'. She was in her twenties, for fuck's sake, and whatever Jack thought, he didn't think of her truly as his daughter, I knew. What I had seen when Angel brought my thoughts here after the Sanctuary bombing scuppered whatever treacherous thoughts of believing Jack was.

And then, suddenly, Roland yelled, "Got it! Richard! Now!"

The dome covering Angel vanished, and I sprinted in. For the first time in over a decade, I was near her. I could touch her. In fact, I ran over and embraced her. "Ricky?" she asked, her eyes wide. "What're you doing?"

I smiled at her. "Hold on," I said, before tapping the button on my ECHO. "Lilith, Maya, NOW!"

As energy gathered around us both, I snarled at Jack, "I told you, one day, we're eloping! **_Bye!_**" I then removed the collar that was around her neck, and then, the tubes of Eridium from the apparatus on Angel's back.

Whatever Jack's response was (and I doubted it would be flattering), it was cut off in a flare of violet and blue light.

* * *

The plan had been this: Maya, as it turned out, could actually freeze time within her Phaselock, although it required intense concentration. In order to buy as much time as possible, she was to Phaselock us both first, and not let go until we had arrived safely. Lilith, of course, could use her projected Phasewalk to bring us both back to Sanctuary from within Control Core Angel. Which was why they needed to stay in Sanctuary, and specifically, in Dr Zed's clinic.

When we emerged, to Dr Zed's eternal credit, he had the life-support tank filled and ready. Maya and Lilith were busy with getting the others out, so I helped Zed plug in a new Eridium tube into the port on Angel's back. She convulsed, crying out. "Ricky…what are you doing?" she demanded.

"Saving your life." As we lowered her into the tube, I said, "The liquid's oxygenated. It'll feel like drowning, but it will help supplement your Eridium levels."

"No, Ricky, I don't…I don't want to…I don't want to be caged…again…" She fell asleep as an anaesthetic, mixed in with her Eridium, kicked in.

Sadly, I lowered her into the liquid. As she breathed it in, she spasmed and convulsed, appearing to drown, only for her body to realise it could breathe the liquid. One last stream of bubbles trickled out of her mouth, and then, she was breathing it. I closed the lid of the tank.

I looked at Zed, who nodded as he checked a control panel. "Life-signs are stabilising. It was a near thing. We'll start the calibrations soon."

I nodded, and sat there, watching Angel as she floated serenely in the glowing purple liquid. No, not serenely. Even though it would be dissolving in the liquid, I knew she was crying. Tears began to drip from my eyes, too. Would she hate me, for what I have done? She seemed to think I was doing what her father did to her: caging her.

I hoped, beyond all hope, that that wasn't what I had just done.

Lilith and Maya came over, along with the others. They had managed to home in on Roland's ECHO recorder, and bring the others back, a little worse for wear, but alive. What was more, Roland had managed to snatch the Vault Key from Jack.

They didn't say anything. They knew nothing could or should be said. Instead, eventually, they left me there, with her.

* * *

Hours passed, hours which felt like days. I watched as the calibrations continued, and Zed carefully fed a muscle regeneration solution into the tank as he continued the other work. And then, Zed turned to me, and nodded. "It's ready, or at least as much as it's going to be. I'll shut off the anaesthetic feed."

A few minutes later, my ECHO crackled, and then, I saw a projected image of Angel, her face a study in disappointment and anger. "Ricky…" she said to me. "How could you? I…I thought you were better than this."

"I never was," I said. "I'm as good as I'm ever going to be."

"Ricky…I wanted to die. I didn't want to swap one cage for another. And yet…you did this. You betrayed everything we stood for! Why?" she demanded. "Why?"

"Because it was necessary."

"Don't talk to me of necessity!" she yelled via the ECHO link, her eyes in the tank snapping open, and glowing. "That's how Daddy thinks! He thought it was necessary to cage me! Why do you think it necessary to do the same?!"

"I never said it was," I said quietly. I went over to Zed, and plucked the device he had been working on from his hands. I brought it over to the tank, and showed it to Angel. It was a plastic box with a tube running from it, the size of a hardback book. "Angel…this is the key to your cage. We just finished making it ready to open the lock. Don't you understand? You said you had faith in me. Was it really so little? I thought I had less faith in myself."

Her eyes widened, both in the ECHO avatar of herself, and in the tank. She realised what I was holding in my hand. "An Eridium injector," she gasped.

"A jerry-rigged one, and completely portable. Not capable of pumping as much as the ones in your prison were, but I hoped that wouldn't be necessary. Zed modified it from one used for normal drugs. We had to know how much Eridium would keep you alive and well, and even then, if you need a boost, there's a boost button. Zed, how long would it take for her to deplete the Eridium in it on the calibrated levels?"

Zed considered the question. "About a few days. It's the lowest level I reckon that will keep her fairly healthy. We're stumbling in the dark here, but, well, this should work."

I looked to Angel. "See what I mean? You may need Eridium to keep you alive, but it doesn't mean you have to be caged forever. Sure, it's not a perfect solution, but…"

"Ricky…" She closed her eyes and smiled, tears running down her cheeks in the ECHO avatar. "It's great. I'm…sorry I said you were like Jack. You're better than him."

"Oh, way to set the standards pretty low."

Zed and Angel laughed. Then, Zed opened up the life-support tank. Keeping her in the liquid, I gently reached around to the Eridium tube currently feeding her, and removing it. I then plugged in the injector, and switched it on. She stiffened, and then sagged slightly. Zed and I helped her out of the tank, and helped her choke up the liquid she had been breathing. But after she did so, she took her first, tentative steps, walking for the first time in over a decade. But when she was standing on her own two feet, she looked at me, and smiled. A fragile, almost disbelieving thing, but she was smiling. And judging by the smile Zed had, albeit hidden by his surgical mask, everything was looking good.

With a cry of joy, she threw her arms around me, and laughed. "You did it, Ricky!" she cried happily.

"No. _We_ did it. Me, the Vault Hunters, Zed, Tannis…and even you. I mean, how could we have done it without you helping us? If it weren't for you contacting me in the first place, none of this may ever have happened." I began to cry into her shoulder. "I could have lost you forever."

"Well…you found me," she whispered. And we stood there, for a moment, just embracing. Yes. It does happen. A perfect moment. We had each other, once again.

**CHAPTER 17 ANNOTATIONS:**

**Sorry if this feels rushed. Yes, I have played through the mission ****_Where Angels Fear to Tread_****. I glossed over the fight with BNK-3R, because I wasn't sure how to write it properly. I figured that the forcefield controls for Angel's containment barrier was with those for the Eridium injectors. And yes, in this version, Brick fights in person.**

**I made Jack's dialogue more angry and uncontrolled in this version of the Control Core Angel fight because of his instability. Snyder has managed to push his buttons, and while having the Vault Hunters in close proximity to his daughter is bad enough, having someone who may just succeed in getting Angel away from him has pushed him over the edge far more than in the game.**

**Now, in case you're wondering why Angel is so harsh with Snyder, it's because she's afraid that, like Jack, he will cage her to keep her alive. When she said she had faith in him earlier, she meant that she had faith in him to survive on Pandora, and stop Jack. She didn't think it'd be possible for her to be free of the big Eridium injectors in Control Core Angel. And she was set on dying in order to rob Jack of his ability to charge the Vault Key. That Snyder would find a way to save her without confining her didn't occur to her, especially as she didn't know about Tannis' Siren power projector, as she thought she would die too swiftly without Eridium to get medical attention.**

**Well, Angel's saved. The battle is over. But the war isn't, as we will see. And it's almost the end of ****_Hooked on a Feeling_****. But not the end of what I am now calling ****_The Ballad of Ricky and Angel_****. And remember what I said at the start. I don't own the song or lyrics to ****_Hooked on a Feeling_****.**

**No numbered annotations this time around. Sorry.**


	19. Chapter 18: Jack's Revenge

**CHAPTER 18:**

**JACK'S REVENGE**

That night, Moxxxi's was filled with people for a private function. If I was hated around Sanctuary for being with Hyperion, then how much more so was Angel? After all, everyone knew that she had helped bring down New Haven, and had manipulated the original Vault Hunters into opening the first Vault, and unleashing the Destroyer. Only those who knew the truth were allowed to attend. Vault Hunters old and new. Marcus, Scooter, Tannis, Claptrap, Dr Zed, and Sir Hammerlock. Timothy Lawrence and Moxxi. Private Jessup, and a couple of the Crimson Raiders. Tiny Tina, and Steve. And there was Angel, and I.

Angel was glaring at what was on the bar. "I've been waiting for a long time for this. This is one of the things I swore I would do in heaven or hell."

"So, would Sanctuary count as either of those? Or purgatory?" Sir Hammerlock asked.

"Meh," Angel said, taking the bottle of beer, and swilling it down. As she finished swallowing, she made a face. "Ugh, that's overrated!"

"You haven't even gotten started!" Axton protested. "It's low-alcoholic beer, too! Moxxi, why do you even keep that shit?!"

"I like to cater to every customer I can," Moxxi purred. "I even have the Pandora Sour-Toe Cocktail(1). Only a few people here have been brave to try it."

"Heyo!" Steve said, waving to indicate that he was one of them. I wonder how he got invited. That being said, the jovial bandit was more endearing than Claptrap. Still annoying, but endearing.

"What's in one of those?" Axton asked.

"A mummified toe, pickled in it," Moxxi explained.

Most of those present grimaced in disgust at the thought. Axton reached for his glass. "If it's all the same to you, I'll stick to your strongest beer. And Angel, have something stronger. That stuff you just had was like making love in a canoe: fucking close to water!"

"Language," Angel chided, chuckling. She toyed with her bottle of beer, and said, "I'm twenty-four years old, and I spent two-thirds of that stuck in Control Core Angel. I've got a lot of catching up to do."

"And here I thought I had the boring life, working in labs and libraries," I said.

"Hey, I've got more in common with Angel than you do, Rick!" Maya slurred, already a little plastered. "Besides our shared Sirenhood, I was kept in a Goddamn monastery for how many years? Used against the people? Treated like a little girl? Not as bad as what Angel got, but pretty fucking bad!"

"WE COMPARE THE LYRICS OF THE BALLADS OF PAIN!" Krieg bellowed.

Roland nodded sagely. "We got out of it pretty damned lightly. It could have been so much worse."

"I lost most of my Slabs. That was no biggie," Brick said.

I frowned, thinking of all those Hyperion personnel we had just killed today, trying to get to Angel. True, they were trying to kill us. And it's hard to think of morality when you're being shot at. But when you take someone's life, you take away their past, present, and future. You take away their potential. You take away their everything.

How many of them were family men? How many of them truly believed in what Jack claimed he was doing? How many of them were in the job not to commit atrocities for Hyperion, but rather, because they believed that they were doing what was right?

It wasn't just the Sci-Zone that caused morality to fade away. The heat of battle did that too. I looked down at my hands, and shuddered. "_Here's the smell of blood still_," I muttered. "_All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand._"

Maya gave me a look. "You channelling Lady Macbeth there, Rich(2)?"

"_What's done cannot be undone_," Krieg said, in his quiet, sane voice. "And you're lucky. You got her back."

"I know," I said. "But…we got lucky. Others got the worst day of their lives, because they ended."

"Take it from me, Rich," Timothy said from where he was sitting, glass in hand. "Hyperion's soldiers are asshats. You did the world a favour. Believe me, I know."

I didn't find that reassuring. Angel sensed my mood, and gently tugged at my arm. "I think Ricky wants to call it a night," she said.

"Sure thing, sugar," Moxxi purred sympathetically.

As we stood, so did Zer0. He was going to escort us back to our quarters. Anyway, I didn't see how he was going to drink without taking that helmet off. At least until I saw the straw sticking out of a hole in his helmet. "Zer0…" I asked. "What is…"

"Emergency induction port(3)."

* * *

As we walked through the streets of Sanctuary in the dark, Zer0 suddenly spoke.

"Victory is ours,

But a wounded beast still makes

A dangerous foe."

"You mean Jack, don't you?" I asked. "While Angel's still alive and with us, he'll never stop hunting us."

"Indeed," Zer0 said.

"Zer0…do you think we did good today?"

After a quiet bit of contemplation, Zer0 spoke again.

"Mourn your enemies,

But don't forget the Angel

Whom you freed from chains."

"I know, I know. And thanks for your help. Everyone helped me pursue a selfish goal."

"The challenge was great,

The cause was even greater.

Your thanks are noted."

"Ricky…" Angel said, "by freeing me, you weakened Hyperion's computer network. Not badly, as I was more of an administrator rather than the linchpin of the system. And without me, even if he gets the Vault Key back, it can't be charged quickly enough. You've bought the decent people of Pandora time. The Key was close to being charged, but now, it'll be nearly a year at least before it is ready."

"Assuming Jack doesn't get you or Lilith."

Zer0 nodded. "We should make plans soon."

We had reached the entrance to our quarters, adjacent to the Crimson Raiders HQ. As we entered, Angel stopped Zer0. "Um…I'd like to ask you something."

"Yes?"

"When we researched you, we could come up with very little. Jack wasn't happy. I was…curious. So, I'm wondering…can I see what you look like underneath that helmet?"

For a moment, Zer0 stood there. Then, he said, "No." An emoticon popped up on his helmet. **_:P_**

"Worth a try," Angel said with a shrug(4).

* * *

At first, we stayed in separate rooms. But then, I woke up to hear screaming from next door, from Angel's room. I rushed in there, to find Angel in the throes of a nightmare. Not knowing what to do, I dithered for a moment at the door, before going over to her. "Angel? Angel!"

She opened her eyes with a gasp. She had changed her clothes, I noticed, getting rid of that damned medical harness. I didn't know where she got them from, but she now had pyjamas with cartoon angels printed all over them. She blinked, and then looked at me. "Ricky?"

"I'm here. What's wrong? Are you okay?"

She closed her eyes. "I dreamt…of things going wrong back in the Control Core. Of them dying. He saved you for last. He made me watch as he tortured you to death." She closed her eyes, and wept quietly. I noticed, in the dim light, that her tears shone, very faintly, purple. All that Eridium in her body, I guessed. As she opened her eyes, I realised that they glowed, very faintly.

"I'm here. And you're free." I gently touched her cheek. Her skin was colder than it should have been. But as long as she wasn't actually dying, I was reassured.

"Yes," she said quietly. She looked up at me with her eyes, pleading gently. "Ricky…stay with me. Please."

I nodded. She shifted over, and I climbed into her bed. I put my arms around her, in a gesture of comfort.

No, we didn't do _that_. What, you thought we were going to have sex or something? Get your mind out of the gutter. I just rescued her from a really fucked up situation. Sex was the furthest thing from both our minds. We just simply lay there, in each other's presence for reassurance, until sleep claimed us once more.

* * *

It wasn't a good night's sleep, but the awakening made it worthwhile. It was something that reassured us that what happened yesterday was real, that reality was no cruel dream, that Angel was alive and free. A state far better than the other states she could have been in: alive, but a slave of Handsome Jack, or free from bondage, but dead.

I had everything I have ever really wanted now. I had wanted to study Sirens really badly, and I had had to content myself with examining the mangled and Claptrap-defiled corpse of Steele. But now, I had one, and perhaps three if they were willing. I had friends, more than I ever had before, in Vault Hunters old and new, as well as a few of Sanctuary's citizens. But most importantly, I had my oldest friend back, the little girl with the tattoo-like markings who befriended the friendless boy with the madness lurking within. Separated for a time, and now, we were back together. A girl who, like me, was both coveted and feared for our differences. We both fell afoul of Handsome Jack.

After we had showered and dressed (in our different rooms), we went to the Crimson Raider HQ. Roland was wincing and rubbing at his head from a hangover, while Brick and Mordecai were laughing at him being a 'fucking lightweight'. Tim was there, the mask back on for the moment, amusing Lilith, Salvador and Axton by saying things Jack would never have said (like 'I enjoy excessive amounts of masturbation' and 'Linda, please donate 87 bajillion dollars to the orphan fund'). Tina was locked in conversation with Gaige, while Krieg looked on, his expression, such as it was, unreadable. Where Zer0 was, I didn't know. Maya was sitting in a corner, reading a book.

It was a nice moment. Until some fucker decided to ruin it.

"_Hey, guys, Handsome Jack here!_" came the unwelcome voice of Jack over our ECHO devices. But there was an edge to the voice that hadn't been there before. "_This is to all you asshats in Sanctuary. You have in your midst the murderers of my daughter._"

Angel's eyes glowed. "I'm standing right here, Dad."

There was a pause. "_No…no, that's impossible. THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!_"

"Impossible?" Angel asked. "Did you think Ricky would want me dead? It's thanks to him and the others that I'm alive, and free from you!"

Another pause. And then, Jack's voice, heavy with emotion, came over the line. If I didn't know any better, it was grief and sorrow in Jack's voice. Genuine grief and sorrow that his daughter was rebelling against him. "_Angel…all that I did…I did for you. All those bandits and criminals I had killed…You had everything you ever needed. Everything. I gave you your castle, princess, safety, education…why? I sacrificed so much for you._"

"You sacrificed _nothing_, Dad. Save for your morality, and your sanity. Everyone else sacrificed for you. You didn't do anything for me after you put me in the Control Core. You did it all for yourself. You made me lie, kill, and watch as you murdered others. Men, women, children. And Dad, there's one last thing I'd like to say to you."

"…_What's that, pumpkin?_"

Angel's glowing eyes flared. "You're no hero. You're an _asshole_."

Once more, silence fell. Eventually, Jack began speaking again, in an unnaturally calm voice. "_I was right after all. Angel is dead. All that is left is an ungrateful little SLUT who spread her legs for an insane monster! Now, it might surprise you to know that I've run tests on that Vault Key. It can withstand a lot. And it only had a week left to charge before it was ready. So even if I do kill Angel, or the other Sirens, all I have to do is be patient. Tell me, Roland, how much power does Sanctuary have to its shields again? Not enough, I daresay, to withstand a moonshot barrage and keep flying! Adios, dickheads. It was all fun and games, until you took my daughter from me. You didn't play by the rules, and now, you suffer the consequences._"

Suddenly, the sound of moonshots hitting the shield. Roland looked at the readouts. "Damn! Lilith, we're going to have to do it again!"

"Shift the city?" Lilith nodded. "Okay!" She then ran out. However, she ran back in briefly, and threw Angel a few nuggets of Eridium. "Just in case!"

Suddenly, alarms sounded. "Damn!" Roland yelled. "The shields are down over the HQ! We're…!"

Before he could finish that sentence, a moonshot round smashed into the HQ. Sanctuary tilted alarmingly as an engine was damaged by another shot. The upshot of both of these things was that Angel, Tim, Tina, Gaige, Krieg, and myself began sliding out the door, passing Roland, who yelled, "No, NO!"

Through the door, the wall had collapsed, and at this angle, it meant that there was nothing between us and the sky. Six of us slid out into the sky.

Just as we were about to start falling in earnest, everything suddenly flared violet.

* * *

We landed roughly on sandy ground. Tim was the first to recover, getting to his feet, and rubbing the back of his head. "What the hell just happened?" he asked.

I looked around. The rocky, arid landscape was far from familiar. It didn't seem like the Dust or the Arid Nexus. You could see, just, in the sky, the ever-present satellite, and the moon. So we were still on Pandora. "I dunno. I guess when we fell, Lilith activated her Phasewalk on Sanctuary. But because we were falling from it, it didn't work properly for us. Good thing too. We'd be falling through the air by now."

"But where's Sanctuary?" Gaige demanded.

"Where's Roland?" Tina said, her bulging eyes wide.

"Gone," Angel said quietly. "Just a moment. Phase-shift activated." Her eyes glowed briefly, and then, she nodded. "I've just cleaned out our ECHO devices. Dad can't track us, for now. On the plus side, I know where we are. The GPS data is out of date, but we're near Oasis."

"Oasis?" I frowned. I had heard of the place, vaguely. It was noted for being at the edge of a desert, albeit one that had once been a small inland sea. Sandworms of various kinds were common near there, nasty things that spat acid. Stalkers were also common there, those nasty creatures that could cloak themselves.

"Yeah. Sanctuary's ECHO link is down, though. We're on our own until it's back up."

I looked around, and spotted a familiar terminal just up a hill. "Isn't that a Fast Travel station?"

"Yes. Give me a moment. Phase-shift activated." Once more, her eyes glowed blue. "Nothing. The data on it is corrupted. I'll send a message to Sanctuary with the station's code, but they'll have to use it. Hopefully, they'll get the message once their ECHO link is back up. Let's get some weapons and ammo from the vending machines."

"Yeah, don't know when we'll be making new friends around here," I muttered.

* * *

Soon, thanks to what money we had, we were armed once more. Tina was clutching a large box of grenades like her life depended on it. Angel now had a sniper rifle. I had gone armed back at Sanctuary, so I still had my Maliwan pistol, the Maliwan SMG Maya gave me, and my shield grenades. Krieg had a Torgue pistol. Tim was already armed, his bracelets capable of firing lasers. I thought that ridiculously cool.

Any further thoughts on that subject were blasted away with an ECHOnet broadcast. I frowned when I realised that it was nearby, at Oasis. The nervous-sounding voice of a man emanated from the speaker. "_Welcome to my lovely town of Oasis, strangers!_" said the voice. A photo accompanying the message showed a man with large sunglasses, a floppy hat, a once-garish colourful shirt faded by desert heat, and…was that a cigarette holder in his mouth?

I frowned. Was it me, or did he look like a Hunter S Thompson fanboy(5)? The ID below marked him as 'Shade'.

"_Now, could you please SAVE ME FROM THE FILTHY SAND PIRATES TRYING TO STEAL MY WATER?!_"

I blinked, and then stared up ahead. A prominent and elegant sign said, _Welcome to the Oasis_. A number of buildings lay in the distance, while nefarious figures, clearly not inhabitants, skulked through the streets. Hanging off the edge of a cliff in the distance was the rear end of a large boat. Not an intended holiday destination.

I stared at the sand pirates, who had now begun to advance on us, having spotted us. And I turned to the heavens, and screamed, "Once, just once, _CAN I GET A FUCKING BREAK?_"

**CHAPTER 18 ANNOTATIONS:**

**Well, this is the end of ****_Hooked on a Feeling_****. Yes, I am evil enough to end it on a cliffhanger. But don't despair: the first chapter of the sequel, ****_You've Got to Hide You Love Away_****, is in the offing. In fact, the last bit of the story was taken from the end of the original first chapter of ****_You've Got to Hide Your Love Away_****. I decided to end it on this note because this fanfic does seem to have a habit of making Snyder think, 'FML'.**

**That being said, ****_The Ballad of Ricky and Angel_**** will get better. Snyder and Angel ****will**** get their happy ending. But they're going to go through a lot of shit beforehand. That being said, we will get to see a lot of Snyder and Angel being badass, along with Tina and Tim (not forgetting, of course, Gaige and Krieg). I also intend for at least one other character to make an appearance, on Jack's side. I wonder if you can guess who they are. Here's a clue: they were one of the playable characters in the Pre-Sequel.**

**I struggled a bit on how to get them to Oasis, and decided on this method. Originally, Angel was looking at places to elope to, and thought that, as Oasis, like Las Vegas, has (in my story) easy ways to get married, she chose that place. Then, I thought about the others getting deliberately caught in a backlash from Lilith's Phasewalk on Sanctuary, but I couldn't justify it. So I did this instead. Hopefully, it's not much of a copout.**

**Hope you guys enjoyed ****_Hooked on a Feeling_****. And don't be too impatient for the sequel. Bye!**

**1\. Minus the Pandora part, the Sour Toe Cocktail IS a real drink. I am not kidding, it actually has a pickled human toe in it. Donated, of course. It's a drink served in the Downtown Hotel in Dawson City in Canada. I vaguely remember hearing about it before, but it was also in an episode of ****_QI_****, specifically, the episode (aptly titled) ****_Horrible_****. I can imagine Moxxi stocking something like this. I reckon Krieg, Brick, or Salvador would give it a go.**

**2\. Yes, he is. The quotes are from ****_Macbeth_****, Act Five, Scene One, where Lady Macbeth is being driven insane by guilt over the murders she and her husband committed.**

**3\. Given that he hides his head in a helmet like a Quarian, I couldn't resist this ****_Mass Effect_**** reference.**

**4\. One of my favourite ****_Borderlands_**** fanfics is ****_New-U_**** by Shikaku Zetsumei, where Angel is revived by the New-U system. It ships Angel and Zer0, and in one chapter, Angel, overcome by curiosity, removes a sleeping Zer0's helmet. This is my little nod to that story.**

**5\. Shade is clearly modelled on Raoul Duke, aka Hunter S Thompson. Particularly how he looks in Ralph Steadman's illustrations for ****_Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_****, and Johnny Depp's portrayal in the film. Of course, his manner is almost nothing like Duke.**


End file.
